Toxic leadership in Corinth: Paul and Corinth's leadership scandal

Kirsten Mackerras explores the leadership issues in Corinth when Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, and shares what we can learn from their situation today.

Church leadership is facing a reckoning. The last few years have seen a shocking number of scandals involving previously respected leaders. These men led ministries that appeared successful, but behind the scenes were built on bullying and abuse. Sadly, leaders like these are nothing new. But what is new is a growing intolerance for such behaviour. Many in the Church are searching for healthier ways of ministering.

How do leaders–by which I mean anyone with authority or influence within a ministry–end up like this? Often, their churches treat them as celebrities. A brand develops around the giftings and personality of the pastor, who becomes unchallengeable because the movement’s success depends on them. Such leaders evade accountability and normalise dysfunction within their teams. The brand becomes more important than the people. This breeds a culture of fear: the team members serve the celebrity pastor’s whims lest they be bullied, ostracised, or fired. Congregation members become expendable. They are reduced to becoming fans and donors, or ‘bodies behind the church’s bus’.

In the evangelical Christian world, problematic leaders often present themselves as ‘more biblical than thou’, telling hard truths which others soften. Yet a closer look at the Bible reveals a different story. In particular, when we compare the apostle Paul to the predominent picture of leadership in his culture, a surprising criterion for ministry emerges: weakness.

Corinth

Paul gives his clearest picture of how Christians are to lead in 2 Corinthians. He tries to equip the church to identify and reject the problematic behaviours of new leaders in the church. The backdrop for this conflict is first-century Corinth, a culture which loved celebrity as much as ours does.

Corinth was a relatively new city in Paul’s day, and it was booming. It controlled wealthy trade routes, and had a reputation for luxury, ambition, and spectacle. There were few established elites, which allowed social climbers to make their fortune and gain power and influence. Corinthians worshipped success, pleasure, and physical appearance. One philosopher described it as the place where fools are most numerous.^[1] The emperor Nero, who was ‘carried away by a craze for popularity’, liked to visit Corinth because it prized fame like he did.^[2] Corinth rewarded success and ridiculed the humble more than most Graeco-Roman cities. Materialism and superficiality ruled in its celebrity-obsessed culture.

Authoritarian leaders

This culture was reflected in the church. In 2 Corinthians, Paul responds to rival apostles whom we might today call toxic. Paul’s relationship with the Corinthians had long been rocky. After he planted the church, he faced factionalism (1 Corinthians 1–4), and then outright opposition after he changed his plans to visit them (2 Corinthians 1–2). New missionaries arrived in Corinth and inflamed this dissatisfaction with Paul. He describes these new leaders as false apostles and, sarcastically, as super-apostles (2 Corinthians 11:5–13). Scholars debate who these super-apostles were, but for us the more important matters are their values and the objections they raised to Paul’s leadership.^[3]

The false apostles were obsessed with image, and judged Paul because he did not project an imposing persona. They boasted in their accomplishments and padded their résumés to make themselves appear more impressive (2 Corinthians 10:7–15). Their speaking skills were a particular point of pride (11:5–6). Paul responded several times to the charge that his discipline wasn’t harsh enough, that he was bold in his letters but timid in person (10:1,10). Paul’s opponents claimed that his gentle rebukes proved that Christ’s power was not working through him. This suggests they believed their bullying displayed Christ’s strength (13:2–3). The false apostles’ authoritarianism is a hallmark of toxic leaders. When we examine Corinth’s culture, we see why the church flocked to them: the super-apostles embodied all that the city prized in its leaders.

The power of speech and image

Like today, ancient leaders projected their personalities through public speaking. This was their equivalent to sermons and podcasts. Impressive speech was an important part of public life, whether you were an official or an entertainer. It was how people won public office. According to Plutarch, who wrote biographies of many Greek and Roman leaders, ‘leadership of a people is leadership of those who are persuaded by speech’.^[4] ‘Sophists’ were itinerant philosophers who sought followers through showy public oratory, much like influencers on social media. With so much competition for an audience, speakers needed a compelling presence to gain a hearing. They gained influence through wealth, nobility, or through performing in a magnetic way. This was the experience of Cicero, Rome’s greatest orator: ‘the eloquent and judicious speaker is received with high admiration, and his hearers think him understanding and wise beyond all others.’^[5]

Corinth’s orators were particularly volatile and slanderous. Here is how one writer described the city’s public space:

… one could hear crowds of wretched sophists around Poseidon’s temple shouting and reviling one another, and their disciples, as they were called, fighting with one another, many writers reading aloud their stupid works, many poets reciting their poems while others applauded them, many jugglers showing their tricks, many fortune-tellers interpreting fortunes, lawyers innumerable perverting judgment, and peddlers not a few peddling whatever they happened to have.^[6]

The Corinthian paradigm for leadership was a showy, imposing speaker. By this metric, the Corinthians thought Paul was a failure (2 Corinthians 10:10).

Self-promotion

The Corinthians also criticised Paul for failing to cultivate his image. Self-promotion or boasting was how Graeco-Romans sought honour and leadership opportunities. Donors carved thousands of inscriptions to publicise their generosity. In first-century Corinth, one prominent donor inscribed a monument with the words ‘Gnaeus Babbius Philinus, aedile and pontifex, had this monument erected at his own expense, and he approved it in his official capacity as duovir.’^[7]  Today boasting is seen as arrogant, but in Paul’s day it would usually bring honour. The Corinthians boasted in their leaders, using them to enhance their own social status: clearly, they had adopted their culture’s attitude (1 Corinthians 3:21; 4:7). The false apostles boasted in their Jewish heritage, their status as ministers of Christ, and their gifts and reputation. They even claimed credit for Paul’s own accomplishments (2 Corinthians 3:1–3; 11:22–23). For these leaders, ministry was about puffing up their public image.

This competition for honour encouraged pride and arrogance. According to Paul’s contemporary Quintilian, a Roman educator and rhetorician, the kind of speakers Corinthians prized ‘use the word “force” for what is better described as violence’.^[8] Ultimately, the Corinthians preferred the false apostles’ domineering to Paul’s mildness. Paul repeatedly defended himself against the charge of weakness; this was clearly a major problem between him and the church. In response, he highlighted how desensitised the Corinthians had become to abusive behaviour: ‘You even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or puts on airs or slaps you in the face. To my shame I admit that we were too weak for that!’ (2 Corinthians 11:20–21, NIV). Whether these descriptions are literal or metaphorical, they show the intruders’ aggression and self-aggrandisement. The Corinthians accepted this misuse of power because they thought it was what strong leadership looked like. By contrast, Paul was seen as being timid in disciplinary matters and unable to dominate the church. In other words, there weren’t enough bodies behind his bus.

Paul

Paul’s credibility has been called into question, and his relationship with the Corinthian church hangs by a thread. How does he respond? Instead of attempting to beat the intruders at their own game, he gives pointers in how to pursue non-toxic leadership. Paul rejects the idea that worldly categories are adequate to judge his ministry. He reframes the Corinthians’ idea of leadership around the example of Christ.

Put your weakest foot forward

The theme of 2 Corinthians is that the true minister is the one who looks most like Jesus. But Paul doesn’t mimic Jesus the conquering king; the true apostle imitates Jesus in his crucifixion. Paul’s ministry is accredited by God precisely because it looks shameful and weak. Shockingly, Paul describes himself as God’s captive, paraded through the streets en route to death. This humiliation is how Paul spreads the gospel and glorifies God (2 Corinthians 2:14–17). God’s ideal leader is the complete opposite of the false apostles’ preferences, and often of ours too.

Paul recognises the temptation to take credit for the glorious bits of Christian ministry. But his weakness is a God-given reminder that he is not responsible for them (2 Corinthians 4:7; 12:7). He calls himself a jar of clay, a fragile and disposable container which was common in the ancient world. Paul knows he is serving God faithfully when his suffering and weakness become a platform not for his own glory, but for the Spirit’s power (12:9–10). He is meek because he knows that a show of force would only confirm the Corinthians’ wrong view of leadership. Paul’s obvious weakness makes it clear that God, not his gifting, makes his ministry effective. The place where God chooses to show his power is not in apparent success or flashiness, but in suffering.

Paul’s boasts

Image was everything to the Corinthians, but not to Paul. Accepting the gospel means ‘from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view’ (2 Corinthians 5:16). Paul tries to equip his congregation to ‘answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart’, and to stop judging by appearances (5:12). The Corinthian church judged Paul against their culture’s definition of success, but Paul shows that their standard is inadequate for evaluating Christian ministry. While the gospel is glorious, its glory is usually hidden within the life of a weak or ordinary minister (4:7).

To emphasise this, Paul boasts of things the Corinthian culture found deeply shameful. Honour, a form of social capital or reputation, was essential to Graeco-Roman relationships. Rhetorical textbooks assumed that everyone wanted to gain honour and avoid shame. One states that everyone accepts ‘the aim of all oratory is to make its propositions appear true and honourable to the judge’.^[9] But Paul attracts social shame to himself like a magnet. The sufferings and humiliations of his ministry are the very things which qualify him for it (2 Corinthians 11:23–33). The Romans defined manliness as not having another person in control of your body, making victims of corporal punishment unmanly. By boasting of the beatings and stonings he had received, Paul portrays himself as ‘unmasculine’.^[10] His scars communicate that he is inferior, slave-like, and weak. Paul concludes by describing himself skulking out of Damascus through a gap in the city walls. This is a parody of the prize won by the first soldier to make it over the wall during a siege. Such soldiers won a gold crown, which was one of Rome’s most highly esteemed military honours.^[11] If the soldier who led the attack wins the greatest honour, then Paul, first in retreat, wins the greatest shame. He gives the sufferings and humiliations of his ministry pride of place on his Christian résumé.

Paul adopts the persona of a fool to make these boasts. This shows his boasting is ironic; he knows it doesn’t inflate his image. But it also associates him with another shameful character. Fools were stock characters from popular theatre – buffoonish, stupid, grotesque. Paul boasts like this to assert that any boasting in yourself is foolish.^[12] The false apostles are no better than the fools they despise, because any boast is hollow when compared to one’s identity in Christ.

Paul boasts in shameful things to show that his opponents’ self-promotion is contrary to the gospel. He chooses to degrade his own image to enhance Christ’s. He magnifies the ways that being like Jesus brings him social shame, to force the Corinthians to choose between their culture and their God. He sees his reputation as unimportant, but Christ’s reputation as everything. So when today’s Christians seek leaders who embody the celebrity our culture respects, Paul would tell them to turn their expectations upside down. Like the Corinthians, the church in the west is discovering that its leadership preferences haven’t yet been fully converted. The gospel should generate leaders who are faithful servants, not self-seeking celebrities. Unhealthy leaders build a movement around their personality and a show of strength, but Paul knows that the most Christlike platform he could have is his weakness.