President Trump’s illness has led to a number of discussions on how people in power have coped with illness. David Owen, former politician and qualified physician, has written about this in a fascinating book called In Sickness And In Power. It is a survey of major politicians who fell ill while in the highest positions of power and how that may have affected their general conduct and decisions.
The one besetting disorder among people in power, however, appears to be hubris. I learned about this when I did a course in Greek Civilisation at Uni. Maybe it doesn’t sound too exciting but it was actually one of the most enjoyable courses I undertook. Time and again in Greek drama you come across characters who showed excessive pride and defiance in face of the gods, a state of being which led to their own destruction. This was hubris.
It has entered into our language to describe a personality quality of extreme or foolish pride or dangerous over-confidence. The hubristic person is one who believes himself/herself to be bullet-proof, above the common flow of humanity, with a high destiny which will not be denied. Owen sees this cap fitting a surprising number of political leaders, some of them within living memory.
It’s one of the dangers of power. I’ve often wondered why anyone would want political office with all the pressures that will be acting upon them, especially in this twitterised age when unfavourable judgements can be so immediate and sometimes vitriolic. But the impulse to make a difference is strong. The problems seem to arrive when you actually have the power to pursue your dreams.
The first king of Israel is a case in point. Saul began as ‘an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites’ (1 Samuel 9: 2) and ended, having gone against an express command from God, as a spiritual derelict seeking comfort from a witch. Lord Acton’s words have become a verbal bludgeon to be wielded against any man or woman who is overreaching themselves: ‘Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’
So another reason to hold our political leaders in prayer, perhaps as much in their successes as well in their failures. Paul enjoins obedience to the governing authorities but that is set alongside his vision for the authorities that they fulfil their God-given role to preserve what is right and just and to hold ‘no terror’ for those in society who are seeking to do right and live justly. (Romans 13: 1-5) There can be no better corrective against the hubris that Owen suggests is a characteristic of political life. In Paul’s vision no person in authority is a master but a servant.
