Great moral leaders inspire, challenge, and unite us--even in a time of deep divisions. Moral Leadership for a Divided Age explores the lives of fourteen great moral leaders and the wisdom they offer us today. Through skillful storytelling and honest appraisals of their legacies, we encounter exemplary human beings who are flawed in some ways, gifted in others, but unforgettable all the same. The authors tell the stories of remarkable leaders, including Ida B. Wells-Barnett, William Wilberforce, Harriet Tubman, Florence Nightingale, Mohandas Gandhi, Malala Yousafzai, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Oscar Romero, Pope John Paul II, Elie Wiesel, Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Short biographies of each leader combine with a tour of their historical context, unique faith, and lasting legacy to paint a vivid picture of moral leadership in action. Exploring these lives makes us better leaders and people and inspires us to dare to change our world.

In Hidden Histories, Monique Moultrie collects oral histories of Black lesbian religious leaders in the United States to show how their authenticity, social justice awareness, spirituality, and collaborative leadership make them models of womanist ethical leadership. By examining their life histories, Moultrie frames queer storytelling as an ethical act of resistance to the racism, sexism, and heterosexism these women experience. She outlines these women’s collaborative, intergenerational, and leadership styles, and their concerns for the greater good and holistic well-being of humanity and the earth. She also demonstrates how their ethos of social justice activism extends beyond LGBTQ and racialized communities and provides other models of religious and community leadership. Addressing the invisibility of Black lesbian religious leaders in scholarship and public discourse, Moultrie revises modern understandings of how race, gender, and sexual identities interact with religious practice and organization in the twenty-first century.

Behind many of the challenges facing us today is a failure of leadership. This is not a new problem. Yearning for wise guidance and effective authority is a perennial human longing. We need leaders who are credible, competent and committed. But many leaders seem to be caught up, even consumed, with their own power and agendas. Some see the leadership crisis as an intellectual problem, believing we lack a clear theory of leadership. Others view the breakdown of leadership as a result of increasing deficiency in moral character. Most leadership books today revolve around the concepts of motivation, inspiration, empowerment, and teamwork. Helpful as these themes might be, they miss something more fundamental. Leadership needs a theological foundation, that will be useful for shaping the undergirding principles, and evaluating current leadership theories and practices. We need to view leadership from the vantage point of God. In Rooted Leadership, John E. Johnson explores how Christian theology provides an overarching leadership framework and applies that theory to leadership practices. Spiritual reflection, guided by scripture, points us to the very center of leadership--God--and the purpose of leadership--that we might display his glory. All the best forms of leading take their cues from who God is, his purposes, and his ways of working with people that he has progressively revealed. Building on three decades of research, study, and experience as a global leader, Johnson surveys the landscape of contemporary leadership theory, unpacks the assumptions and beliefs that underly current trends, and responds by offering a robust approach to leadership, founded on the character, work, and words of God.

Over the past forty years, congregations, businesses, other organizations, and communities across the United States have become increasingly divided along political and ideological lines. In When the Center Does Not Hold, David R. Brubaker, with contributions by colleagues Everett Brubaker, Carolyn Yoder, and Teresa J. Haase, offers relevant, practical mentorship on navigating polarized environments. Through easily accessible stories, they provide tools and processes that will equip leaders to both manage themselves and effectively lead others in highly polarized and anxious systems. Coaching includes guidance on key characteristics of effective leadership in times of polarization: refusing contempt, honoring dignity, broadening binaries, seeking first to understand, inviting disagreement, and staying connected. With years of combined experience in the fields of conflict transformation and organizational and leadership studies, Brubaker and his colleagues offer hope. Here, readers learn from leaders and communities that continue to renew the covenants that bind them, courageously address deeper needs that drive conflict, and hold on to a moral center while navigating the storms of polarization.

Robin Gill examines the issues that connect faith and moral leadership in an increasingly fragmented and relativistic world.

The growing movement of post-evangelicalism highlights an opportunity to elevate and center the moral teachings of Jesus. So many of those who identify as Christian intuitively know that their old version of faith is no longer working, and they feel a theological vacuum. David P. Gushee has been a leader in recent years for those ready to move on to a more examined and robust faith. Now, in The Moral Teachings of Jesus, Gushee examines forty teachings of Jesus, drawn from all four New Testament Gospels, to clarify exactly what Jesus said about the moral life.