* Reader's Best Awards 2023 (Runner-Up) Englewood Review of Books * * Book of the Year 2023 – Books and Big Ideas with Joel Wentz * WILL WE BECOME A SCANDAL TO THOSE WHO LOOK TO US AS LEADERS, OR WILL WE CHOOSE TO IMITATE THE SCANDALOUS WAY OF CHRIST? The fall of high-profile leaders has sadly become an epidemic, and although books and podcasts have sought to uncover the problem, they often fail to identify the root cause. In The Scandal of Leadership , JR Woodward offers a deeper diagnosis, outlining a more comprehensive understanding of power abuses in the church and the critical role of imitation. Drawing from Scripture and the scholarship of Walter Wink, René Girard, and William Stringfellow, as well as from positive examples of leaders such as Óscar Romero, this book offers a robust theology of the Powers––of Satan, the demonic, and the principalities and powers explored in the Bible. By unmasking the Powers of domination, Woodward seeks to help missional leaders practice a self-emptying spirituality that reshapes their desires and forms them into Christlike servants who join God’s mission in the world. The work and writing of JR Woodward cannot be overlooked. Through a lived experience of serving the church and her leaders, Woodward has shown he is not only a tested practioner but also a brilliant thinker. The Scandal of Leadership represents not only a book. It's a manifesto of hope for the church to live into her God-given glory. Highly recommended. A.J. SWOBODA, PhD , associate professor of Bible, Theology, and World Christianity, Bushnell University; author, After Doubt The Scandal of Leadership tackles one of the most urgent challenges facing the church today - the promulgation of domineering leadership - and rightly casts this problem as more than just a matter of individual leaders gone astray but rather of broken systems of formation and imitation. MATTHEW CROASMUN , associate research scholar, Yale Center for Faith & Culture; author, The Emergence of Sin: The Cosmic Tyrant in Romans Moral failures, domineering leaders, bullying, and abuse of power are some of the all-too-common phrases that fill Christian headlines these days. Sometimes I wonder if there are any "good leaders" left. Christian leaders of any kind must reexamine their relationship with power. JR Woodward names the powers and principalities that corrupt once-good-leaders and invites us to rediscover the gift of power through the lens of Jesus and Scripture. Finally, a book that doesn't just deconstruct the tired framework for leadership but reclaims a Christ-centered vision for leadership that reflects the goodness of God. This is the book we've been waiting for. TARA BETH LEACH , pastor; author, Radiant Church With the help of Girard, Wink, and Stringfellow, JR makes an important contribution to imagining how we dwellers in institutions can live in them self-critically. Through his enriched understanding of the principalities and powers, he offers religious leaders, or those who would become such, a realistic and dynamic set of criteria to judge by which "other" they are being run and so learn to avoid dysfunctional and destructive patterns of church life. Highly recommended. JAMES ALISON , catholic priest and theologian This is a book for our times! In The Scandal of Leadership , JR exposes the deeply spiritual elements at work in the assumed culture of leadership of the contemporary church. Readers are summoned to a deep self-searching that calls for metanoia in their personal as well as their collective lives. We resonated deeply with this book. A must-read! ALAN AND DEBRA HIRSCH , authors; cofounders, Forege Missional Training Network and Movement Leaders Collective At every level and in every sphere, especially the ecclesial, we are witnessing authority gone awry, wreaking havoc and leaving tramatized people and shame in its wake. If you have ever wondered why it is almost impossible to uncouple God-given authority from the lust for power, why authority and power are so often conflated even in the church, and if "sheep may safely graze again" this book is a must-read. With careful theological work engaging key discursive writers on power, Woodward pulls the wool off our eyes and helps us see the ultimate personalities behind the oft laspes into building personality cults - the principalities and powers of Pauline theology, the spirits behind institutions, the "structuring structures," to use psychospiritual language. The antidote is not more programmatic attempts to shore up the character of leaders nor even engaging in spiritual warfare with the spiritual Powers but the call of the master to the cruciform life that spills forth in ministry as cruciform. May sheep now safely graze. REV. ESTHER ACOLATSE, PhD , professor, Pastoral Theology and World Christianity, Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary; author, Powers, Principalities, and the Spirit Not for the fainthearted, th