<\/p>\n
It has been said, history has a way of repeating itself. Who would ever imagine that a book published three hundred years ago could still find relevance today? Oh, I forgot-we are in Seminary….. Let me clear this up, what book other than the Bible??\u2026.. An argument can be made that books having long term historical relevance are not as common as one would think compare them to the total number of books published throughout time. In fact, Dr. Jason dropped a major bomb last year to us during our Oxford intensive reminding us all that thousands of leadership books are published annually so what would make an author\u2019s book so different?<\/span><\/p>\n Sun Tzu’s<\/em>, The Art of War <\/em>is different. It weaves an ancient military philosophy into our modern day thinking. Leadership, conflict, and strategy are some of the major themes Tzu unpacks, but what makes his timeless writing so profound is the fact that if you were to look solely at it from a militaristic lens you will become blind to the golden insights towards life and leadership. Under the backdrop of Chinese militarism there are some huge takeaways for our modern-day American culture.<\/p>\n It is hard to escape the anticipatory feelings toward this fast-approaching Presidential election. Unless you are living under a rock, there is a political frenzy overtaking our country. Every day, the bombardment of ads, texts, television, media, and social media is filled with conversation, debate, analysis, and opinion. It is hard to dodge the overwhelming political funneling that is flowing into America’s veins. How can one not be overtaken nor succumb to the present climate and culture? Tzu offers a timeless treasure to lay hold of, in his unpacking of a strategy called maneuvering<\/em>.[1]<\/span><\/p>\n We are not fit to lead an army on the march, unless we are familiar with the face of the country. It’s mountains and forests, its pitfalls and precipices, its marshes and swamps.<\/span><\/em>[2] This week I was honored to be a part of a panel discussion entitled, “Pastoral Leadership- Politics and The Pew”. <\/em><\/span>The heartbeat of the workshop centered on how pastors lead congregations during some of the most politically and socially polarizing times in rece<\/span>nt <\/span>history. As this demographically diverse group shed their methods, all of the panelists agreed the election is front and center for the majority of congregants, but publicly acknowledging and addressing the political tightrope, many said they chose to ignore it.<\/p>\n Reflecting on Tzu\u2019s writing, I continuously ruminated over one of his strategies, deviation<\/em>. Deviation is a form of tactical maneuvering. This is no easy feat at Tzu suggests, the difficulty of tactical maneuvering is turning the devious into the direct and misfortune into gain.[3] One of the church’s greatest assets as an institution is how it is postured as a deviation. <\/span><\/p>\n On the macro, we must constantly contend and attempt to conquer all the world throws at us. War, rumors of war, earthquakes, climate change, quality of life, the economy, sexism, racism, classism, poverty, inequality, the list goes on. On the micro we also are navigating in our personal space, relational issues, raising the children, overcoming health challenges, family dysfunction, career pressure, mental health, grief and loss, and balancing responsibilities\u2014Feel free to add your plight to the list.<\/p>\n Wrestling with all the above can be emotionally, physically, and psychologically taxing, but from my vantage point- the church is strategically placed in the world as a deviation. Here, it is a sanctuary and refuge for the weary, the worn, and the wondering. Here is the respite and the repository for spiritual well-being. In the busyness of life, the doors are open for deviation. An opportunity to gain a Christ and Kingdom-centered perspective amidst a sin-sick world. As Tzu reminds readers, we are familiar with the face of the country, but the church in its deviation, can make the world familiar with the face of God. I am reminded of a song we sang as children in church; we are soldiers in the Christian army.<\/em> What would be the outcome if the troops led the world into deviation?<\/p>\n As Tzu lays out the steps to the Art of War, he states five constant factors for deliberation. The Moral Law, Heaven, Earth, The Commander, Method, and Discipline.[4] It was interesting to read his views on the spiritual and natural as necessary steps in defeating the enemy. Considered by many to be a practitioner, I enjoyed his take on the strategies, although I found myself going over them in my head a few times to get the full meaning. I can see how some things may apply to today\u2019s context, but I can see a lot of people today writing his strategies off with irrelevance as their argument. However, if one seeks to be practical, tactical, and victorious, I would advocate that a book published 300 years ago could offer some answers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]\u00a0Tzu, Sun,\u00a0The Art of War<\/em>, (Laguna Hills: Quarto Publishing Group USA, 2017), 37<\/p>\n [2] Tzu, 37.<\/p>\n [3] Ibid.<\/p>\n [4] Tzu, 5.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It has been said, history has a way of repeating itself. Who would ever imagine that a book published three hundred years ago could still find relevance today? Oh, I forgot-we are in Seminary….. Let me clear this up, what book other than the Bible??\u2026.. An argument can be made that books having long […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3263],"class_list":["post-38405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp03-suntzu-300years","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38405"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38407,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38405\/revisions\/38407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}