The Way of Prophetic Leadership: Retrieving Word & Spirit in Vision Today

By Jennifer Campbell

This book seeks to address both the bewilderment and desire for prophetic visionary leadership in the contemporary church by a discussion of two significant revivals of the 1600s: the English Nonconformist Quakers and the Protestant French Huguenots.
How can prophetic vision be incorporated successfully into the ministry of the church? Campbell argues that the
mission of the apostle, evangelist, pastor and teacher is to be prophetically inspired and led in every way by the union of the Word, the Person of Jesus Christ, and the Person of the Holy Spirit.
- Publisher

• Language: English
• Publisher: Authentic Publishers
• Release date: Jun 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781780780849

Jennifer Campbell

Jennifer Campbell is a teaching stream professor in Computer Science at the University of Toronto. In 2014, she received the Faculty of Arts and Science Outstanding Teaching Award. Jen engages in computer science education research, studying student experiences, factors for success, and the effectiveness of various course formats, including flipped and online courses.

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Copyright © 2015 Jennifer Campbell

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First published 2015 by Paternoster Paternoster is an imprint of Authentic Media Limited 52 Presley Way, Crownhill, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ES. authenticmedia.co.uk

The right of Jennifer Campbell to be identified as the author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the UK such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London, EC1N 8TS.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-84227-835-2

978-1-84227-084-9 (e-book)

Unless otherwise specified, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America, and are used by permission. All rights reserved.

Author’s Note: The use of ‘Word’ in the text denotes the person of Jesus Christ and ‘word’ refers to the Scriptures or the Bible. In all cases in the Quaker material the word ‘Light’ is capitalized when it refers to the person of Jesus Christ. Spelling, punctuation and grammar have been retained in all citations, titles and details of publication in all works consulted. Reference numbers for broadsides, pamphlets and microfilm refer to the collections the Bodleian Libraries, the University of Oxford.

Cover Design by David McNeill (www.revocreative.co.uk) Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd., Croydon, CR0 4Y

Dedicated to all members of the worldwide St Thomas’ Order of Mission

Contents

Abbreviations

Preface

Foreword

Introduction

Prophetic Leadership in a Vision of Word and Spirit

Prophetic Leadership in the Huguenots and Quakers

Prophetic Leadership in the Fivefold Ministry

1. Apostles of Prophetic Vision

Huguenot Apostles: Radical Vision in the Church of the Désert

Quaker Apostles: Dissent and the Birth of Vision

Restoring Apostolic Visionary Leadership

2. Prophetic Evangelists on Fire

Huguenot Evangelists: Prophecy in the Theatre of War

Quaker Evangelists: Prophetic Publishers of Truth

Reclaiming Prophetic Preaching

3. Prophetic Pastors of the Heart

Huguenot Pastors: Testimony to Christ in the Crucible

Quaker Pastors: Testimony to Christ Within

Revisiting Prophetic Pastors

4. Prophetic Teachers of Scripture

Huguenot Teachers: Prophetic Spectacles of Scripture

Quaker Teachers: Prophetic Openings of Scripture

Redeeming the Prophetic Teacher

Conclusion

Bibliography

Endnotes

Abbreviations

Preface

Thus says the Lord: Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls (Jer. 6:16).

Out of the whirlwind which is life in the hurly-burly of the twenty-first century, comes the sanest word from the Christian Scriptures: find rest for your souls. And how might we do this as church leaders in the West managing decline, or stretched to a limit managing busyness? We are instructed to pause at the crossroads of our lives, or the lives of our churches, fellowships or organizations, and take a breather: stop the frenzied casting about for vision from this or that source and petition God to show us the good ways. And when our spiritual eyes are opened we shall see the road ahead. The trick then is to walk on it.

Visionary leadership or (Dare we mention it in these days of aversion to anything too supernatural?), prophetic leadership is a handmaid which is coupled closely to our quest for the ancient paths. Lest we fear rash outcomes of such a heady spirituality, we must ground Christian leadership in a union of Jesus Christ the Word and the Holy Spirit the truth-giver. These concepts are integral facets of a prophetic prism: the marriage of the two hands of God, the synergy of Word and Spirit in prophecy for the full release of dynamic, forward-thinking kingdom ministry. However, we dare not fall back or stagger on the threshold of the future. We must be bold and step into the new. If perchance the Western church were to recover an ancient path set out in the New Testament, viz. the structure of the fivefold ministry as an open door to all, would the saints of God finally reach maturity and be the witness we are meant to be? Moreover, if this pattern were to be infiltrated at every level by the gift of prophecy, might the vision of God be sharpened, clarified and shine brightly? This book seeks a futuristic vision by means of a backward glance into the past, a past littered with glittering examples of inspiring prophetic leadership in two unrelated moves of the Holy Spirit in seventeenth-century France and England.

I am indebted to church leaders who have pointed up the workable nature of the fivefold ministry: Mike Breen, erstwhile Superior of the St Thomas’ Order of Mission (TOM), Peter and Anne Findley, leaders of Network Church, Sheffield, and countless nameless, faceless leaders in TOM, strenuously and courageously bringing the kingdom of God to earth across the globe. My thanks are due to those who aided and abetted the project in 2013: Professor Kathleen Coleman, who hosted me at Harvard University and edited the draft material; Dr Mike Parsons of Paternoster, who assisted in the final edits; Keith and Anne Crawford, Jamie and Liz Smith, for their hospitality during periods of research and writing; many friends in England, Europe, South Africa and America, whose friendship lent spiritual and prayerful impetus to my resolve. Finally, I owe my thanks to the north Wiltshire community among whom I live and with whom I share my life, for their sense of humour and staying power throughout my endeavours. Despite all practical and spiritual assistance, however, any matters of infelicitous style, inconsistencies or errors are mine alone.

Jennifer Campbell

Shaw Green, Ashton under Hill

8 April 2014

Foreword

Near the southern tip of Jennifer Campbell’s native country of South Africa lies a little town called Franschhoek. The name, from the Dutch for ‘French corner’, enshrines the memory of its first settlers, 176 Huguenot refugees who arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1688, moving halfway across the world to escape religious persecution in France. The wine-farms that they established beneath the mountains along the Berg River, bearing names like ‘Provence’ or ‘Dieu Donné’, still testify to the nostalgia of those first owners for their homeland, coupled with their belief in the grace of God.

The Cape of Good Hope is only one of many parts of the world where the Huguenots sought refuge. Their French names are enshrined in prominent institutions and toponyms as far apart as La Trobe University in Australia (named for Charles La Trobe, Huguenot descendant and Lieutenant-Governor of Victoria) and Revere outside Boston, the site of the first public beach in the United States (called after Paul Revere, prominent in the American Revolution, whose father, Apollos Rivoire, passed on both elements of the anglicized version of his name to his son). Part of Jennifer Campbell’s concern in this book is to chart the formation of the first Huguenot communities in France who rejected Catholicism and with the leaders who inspired them to follow a new path—a new path spiritually, leading them to new paths in the literal sense that would take them to some of the furthest corners of the known world.

At virtually the same time as the Huguenots were rejecting traditional Catholic teaching and practices in France, across the Channel in England, which had been officially Protestant since the Reformation a hundred years earlier, the Quaker movement emerged at the end of the English Civil War. Often regarded as a radical form of Puritanism, Quaker teaching is rooted in an unmediated personal experience of God, which is frequently manifested in the ‘quaking’ from which its adherents derived their popular name. The Quakers, too, briefly suffered persecution after the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II, and, like the Huguenots, some of them sought a new life and religious freedom abroad, especially in North America, where they played a significant role in shaping colonial history. The best-known of the early American Quakers is William Penn (1644–1718), who founded Pennsylvania. The formation of the Quaker movement constitutes the other main area of investigation in this book.

Huguenots and Quakers rejected the established Church—Catholicism in the case of the Huguenots, for the Quakers the Church of England. Hence they also turned away from the formal liturgy and ecclesiastical hierarchy that characterized it. But to bracket them together on that basis would be to elide distinct differences between them. The two movements evolved independently of one another and espoused different principles: the Huguenots were willing to bear arms in defence of their religious beliefs, while the Quakers espoused pacifism; the Huguenots tolerated slavery, whereas the Quakers were abolitionists; the Huguenots cultivated prophetic ecstasy, while the Quakers practised discernment through silence; Huguenot teaching was rooted in the Bible, whereas for the Quakers the Bible was subject to interpretation by the Spirit working independently within each member of the community.

To different degrees, the early Huguenots and Quakers were both guided by a union of Word and Spirit. In this book, Jennifer Campbell examines the two movements as crucibles of prophecy. She seeks first to uncover the mystical teachings and visionary leadership of their founders: for the Huguenots, ultimately John Calvin (1509–1564) but more immediately Pierre Jurieu (1637–1713), a French intellectual who spent part of his life in exile in Rotterdam; for the Quakers, first and foremost George Fox (1624–1691), who dedicated his life to preaching and the founding of the Quaker movement. She then traces prophetic utterance—including that of women and children—in the early communities formed by each of these movements. Juxtaposing Huguenots and Quakers in four separate chapters, she relates the role of the prophet to each of four other categories of ministry: apostle, teacher, pastor, and evangelist.

Huguenots and Quakers, driven from Europe for upholding their dissident religious principles, played a seminal role in the colonial enterprise of the seventeenth century, and in so doing they changed the world. Reaching back to the moment from which both movements took their inspiration, Jennifer Campbell offers a model for prophecy that poses a challenge to the conventional roles of clergy and laity in the Church of the twenty-first century. She does not sanctify those early Huguenots and Quakers or attempt to hide their errors, quarrels, and misjudgements. Rather, through extensive archival research, she is able to let their leaders, beset by crisis and armed with conviction, speak in their own words from their age to ours.

Kathleen M. Coleman

James Loeb Professor of the Classics

Harvard University

Easter Day, 2014

Introduction

These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also (Acts 17:6).

This book is inspired by the ever-present question in the Western church: why is the manifest evidence of revival throughout Christendom marked by powerful signs and wonders, yet in Europe – the cradle of Christianity – the gospel is proclaimed largely by word, without ‘a demonstration of the Spirit and of power’ (1 Cor. 2:4)?

Equally teasing is the notion that the Western church is not turning the world upside down, but that the world is being sent to Europe to rekindle the seeds of revival. The European church, in desperate need of its mission revived, is in dire straits without visionary prophetic leadership, in order to understand the times and to know what to do in them, by possessing the mind of Christ (cf. 1 Chr. 12:32; 1 Cor. 2:16). If we are instructed to strive for the spiritual gifts, and especially that we may prophesy (1 Cor. 14:1), then surely the gift of prophecy must have particular moment for vision and leadership? Is prophecy not the distinguishing element between godly and worldly patterns of leadership? For if the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets (see Amos 3:7), then it is essential that the prophets make known the mind of God, in order that prophetic leadership guides the church: ‘Where there is no prophecy, the people cast off restraint’ (Prov. 29:18). And yet, today, prophecy is often seen as a Cinderella gift, the very last to be considered, or omitted entirely in the piles of Christian leadership manuals, invariably pickled in a practical amalgam of who, what and how on the one hand, and on the other so innovative and wide off the mark as to stray from biblical roots. Invariably there is a turn to secular literature, overabundant with inherent genius in leadership models, but giving rise to interesting notions, which, like so many wandering barks, may take the church off course, heedlessly and recklessly. And those still in wide-eyed wonder at the joy of following Jesus are bored to tears with safe (but dull) instruction on leading others.

This book has its embryonic beginnings in a conscience troubled by the current lack of robust theological research in the field of prophetic leadership, and by the paucity of serious spiritual reflection on the topic within the contemporary church. Christian prophecy often stops at the instant of receiving vision from God, and falls short in its attempt to understand, with prophetic insight, the ways and means or the strategies for the implementation of such a vision. Presumably this problem stems from the fact that prophets are not necessarily leaders, or that leaders are not prophets. The church cries out for prophetic leadership more than gifts of prophecy, i.e. leaders who are prophets and prophets who are leaders, so that vision might be received and acted upon. Naturally such a journey is a risk. To open the door to the supernatural interventions of a boundary-breaking God is never predictable or certain and always an adventure.

Prophetic Leadership in a Vision of Word and Spirit

The general scope of this work is an engagement with God as a spiritual being, with Jesus Christ as fully human and totally divine, and with the Holy Spirit and all the charismata (gifts or graces). By embracing the totality of the biblical witness, including all the supernatural oddities and absurdities, there is more likelihood of an holistic appreciation of the full measure of the role of prophetic leadership today.

In all probability, this venture is likely to be a rocky ride and it is essential that prophetic leadership hold to a steady course. For this reason a recovery of the full meaning of a marriage of Word and Spirit is entirely necessary, in order to attain to an equilibrium in any agenda of prophetic leadership. By this is meant that if ‘the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy’ (Rev. 19:10), then all prophetic leadership should begin and end with the person of Jesus Christ, the Word of God, to whose life and witness Spirit-inspired prophecy testifies. At the same time, and running on a parallel track, is the work of the prophetic Holy Spirit, under whose impulse and influence the prophet speaks or writes: ‘no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God’ (2 Pet. 1:21). The trick in visionary leadership, therefore, is to join and hold together the full measure and action of both Word and Spirit, so that the mission of the church is both generated and sustained by robust prophecy. It is incumbent upon leadership to uphold a union of Word and Spirit to avoid disastrous consequences spilling over from flakiness, as an investigation of the supernatural dimension leads, somewhat inevitably, to the difficult issue of mysticism and its relationship to prophecy. To hold true to a wise path, by means of an intelligent grasp of the complex nature of spiritual reality, is the task of prophetic leadership.1

James A. Wiseman, a Benedictine monk and professor in the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the Catholic University of America, pinpoints the essence of mysticism. It has less to do with absorption, so that the individual personality is lost, and more to do with a consciousness of the presence of God. From the Greek word myein, meaning ‘to close’, for example, to close the eyes or lips, connoting something hidden or secret, is derived the words mysterion (‘mystery’) and mystikos (‘mystical’). In the Old Testament, a council of those who are party to God’s secrets are ‘Sons of God’ or heavenly councillors, those to whom the thoughts of God are made known (Dan. 2:28, cf. Mark 4:11; 1 Cor. 2:7; 4:1). Elias Marion, one of the French Huguenot prophets, hears God say: ‘Within a few days I will discover my mysteries unto thee.’ The affective side of mystical writing has held it to be a special state of consciousness, which, surpassing ordinary experience through union with the transcendent, can be party to unusual or exotic states of vision and ecstasy.2

The cogent study of popular religion and transatlantic spiritual enthusiasm by Clarke Garrett, an American professor, traces the commonalities within German pietism, the early Methodists, the Great Awakening, the French Huguenot prophets and the Shakers. The term ‘enthusiasm’, originating in ancient Greece, is the notion of someone possessed by a god. Garrett argues that it does not represent an irrational departure from orthodoxy, but that most cultures believe in the supernatural spirit possession of earthlings. Widespread Pentecostalism, with its demonstration of glossolalia (tongue speaking) and Spirit baptism, is evidence of the very human desire for the indwelling immediacy of divinity experienced through the senses. Spirit manifestations must be tested, and for this reason the partnership of Word and Spirit: do such manifestations testify to Jesus Christ?3

Prophetic Leadership in the Huguenots and Quakers

In order to test the union of Word and Spirit in prophetic visionary leadership, we investigate two independent spiritual movements on either side of the English Channel during the seventeenth century. We are fired by the courage, daring audacity, sheer forth-rightness and utter devotion to God of two groups of people blindsided in the extremities of persecutions and wars: the Protestant French Huguenots and the Nonconformist English Quakers. This work is governed by multivalent disciplines: on one level it is an historical synopsis, on another level it is a deeply theological analysis, and on still another it is a spiritual reflection. Although it cannot pretend to be an all-encompassing historical review of two highly significant church struggles, the book is nonetheless an attempt to draw out lessons from history as these pertain to the topic of visionary leadership.

The period under investigation comprises a generation, an interval of seventy years between 1640 and 1710, spanning the early Quaker founders and the first and second stages of Quakerism, and the intensified Huguenot uprisings in France to the aftermath of the war in the Cévennes. The work is a theological retrieval of visionary leadership: the way in which leaders saw and heard God in the pressurized political and religious cauldrons of their day, and the methods they used to set fire to their visions. It is also a spiritual reflection, as it seeks to grapple with the mysteries of faith under extreme persecution, the empowerment of ordinary people (particularly the potential of the ministry of women and children), familiarity with the supernatural visitations of angels and miracles, and the interpretation of Scripture in the social milieu and religious custom of the hurly-burly of daily life.

Two brief observations from leading contemporary scholars begin to acquaint us with the field. In his magnificent book, which covers a century and a half of Huguenot life and religion, an English historian, Geoffrey Treasure compares this church with the early Christians of the Roman catacombs. He applauds their conviction and courage, their will to be a people set apart, and suggests that the reader will find the record of these men and women of faith impressive, even inspiring: ‘[T]he mindset is constant. Huguenots were not afraid to be strangers in their own country. Faith was all.’ In his thoughtful reflection on Quaker spirituality, Douglas V. Steere (1901–95), an eminent American Quaker ecumenist, notes the singularity of the freedom to worship God in any pattern, from the Quaker origins in the ferment of the revolutionary Commonwealth, to the present day. He raises the pertinent question of the significance of lay ministry, by underlining Quaker openness to hearing God, and challenging the view that the Apostolic Age is over and that the Holy Spirit speaks only through the Magisterium of the Church.4

Prophetic Leadership in the Fivefold Ministry

To guide the topic of Word and Spirit in visionary leadership we must set parameters in order to narrow the argument to a secure biblical framework. The fivefold pattern of ministry enunciated in the Letter to the Ephesians provides a way of testing the thesis of Word and Spirit in vision, and especially as this pertains to our study of the Huguenot and Quaker movements:

The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. (Eph. 4:11–13)

The underlying notion behind this Pauline order of ministry is a leadership arrangement designed to obtain the maximum potential from the members of the body of Christ. Key gifts of people are established to lead others and to promote ministry and a unity in faith – on a wide church canvas this is an ecumenical venture. There is an expectation of an integral synergy between the ‘offices’ in the fivefold pattern as they work together to achieve the objective of Christian maturity. The prophet stands alongside the apostle to envision and assist in pioneering new mission developments; the evangelist works tirelessly to bring into the fold those straying sheep; and the teacher and pastor educate converts into wholeness of life and witness. Although the prophet stands alone as a gift to the church, the importance of the relatedness of prophecy to the other four ministries cannot be too strongly emphasized. Without prophecy the vision is impoverished and the ministry the poorer. In view of the injunction to strive especially for the gift of prophecy, we must raise the bar, by raising the question of the integration of the gift of prophecy into the fivefold leadership sequence. Naturally this would exclude the prophet,