Political Leadership: Fear of God or Love of Jesus?

Fear and love are two very powerful emotions. Could we say that an emotionally intelligent political leader is able to use these emotions to help bring peace to the world? I thought of this after talking to a friend of mine about her daughter being bullied at school. Her daughter's once close friends would whisper to her, "Annabelle, I hate you. And so does my mother." It hurt me to hear this. I know how sensitive her daughter is, and how beautiful she is inside.

Then her mother told me that she had frequently complained to the school director and he did nothing about it. She said he needed to speak to the whole class and really "put the fear of God into them." Later I thought about this expression and I wondered if would it help more to put the "fear of God" into them, or the "love of Jesus"?

I am not an expert on the Christian beliefs, but from what I know, they believe that Jesus was sent by his father, "God", to spread a new message of love and compassion as opposed to the old image of an angry, vengeful, threatening, frightening god. What, then, might Jesus and his father would recommend to the US President with regard to his plans to start a war? Would they urge him to put the "fear of God" into Mr. Hussein? Or would they recommend he try to reach him through the emotions of love and compassion? I also wonder what the gods of the world's other major religions might recommend to him if he could ring them up for a chat. Or what those who simply believe in nature and science might recommend. Personally, I fear Mr. Bush forgets that there are other belief systems besides his own. (Assuming he ever knew this at all, which might be a false assumption.)

At any rate, in thinking what a loving, compassionate and perhaps emotionally intelligent person might do, I thought Mr. Bush could possibly say something like this to Mr. Hussein:

Mr. Huessin, I feel very afraid of what you could do. I don't understand why you want to develop those weapons. But maybe it is because you are afraid of me and my friends. Maybe you don't like being pushed around and threatened. Maybe you feel bullied. But I don't want you to be afraid of us. I don't want you to be afraid that we are going to kill children in your country or kill you or even try to remove you from power. I wouldn't like it very much if someone threatened me and tried to forcibly remove me from power. I would be very scared of anyone who did this. And I would probably feel rebellious and defiant. And I might even put my own personal feelings above the best interest of my country and the world. I might let it become a personal power struggle. So could we talk about how you are feeling? I want to listen to you. I want to understand things from your perspective. I apologize for threatening you. I realize that so far I have only made you feel more defiant.

I am really afraid a lot of people are going to be killed if we don't work this out between the two of us. I am afraid there will be resentment and hatred for years to come, and all of us will continue to live in fear if we can't talk about our true feelings. I am really scared of this. I really love children. I love to see them laugh and play. I love to seem them happy. It really hurts me when I think of them being killed or crying because they have lost their mom or dad or brother, sister, aunt or uncle. Could you help me so we can avoid a lot of people being killed and a lot of children crying?

 

S. Hein
Feb 2003