The Rice Bowl Leadership

I visited a cell group last Friday and had a heart-to-heart talk with the young adults.

I shared with them how I felt when RZ fell. It was scary (to say the least) how a man that well-versed in defending the faith and that successful in ministry worldwide could have engaged in such blatant sexual acts for more than ten years without anyone within his leadership circle calling him out. 

In fact, I have a name for that kind of leadership. It’s call rice-bowl leadership. It is quite universal, even amongst secular organisations. This is how it works, even quietly thrives. 

If you follow the trail in RZ’s countless of secret rendezvous, you will note that it goes back to 2004. That is the exposed trail that is known. 

In 2008, Salt and Light reported that he was “seen with a woman he was not related to in a Singapore hotel.” He was holding her hand and “appeared to be intimate with her.” When questioned, RZ said it was a misunderstanding, and his ministry declined to investigate. 

This is what the then Singapore Board chair said: “Directors agreed that derogatory remarks of any kind by any of the parties must cease immediately as they do not glorify the Lord...We are of the same conviction that brothers should reconcile where there have been misunderstandings...The work of RZIM is making great impact on unbelievers and any public dispute will bring irreparable damage to parties concerned and the organization.”

That is very much the deindividuation of faith - that is, “the loss of oneself as an individual,” and in the Christian context, a variant kind of bystander effect, where seemingly good leaders stand by one side, the organisation side, dismissing any cause for inquiry as a misunderstanding, and justifying it with this often heard forewarning - “any public dispute will bring irreparable damage to parties concerned and the organization.”

I trust that there is the peculiar universal effect concerning organizations, especially those who claim to be the emissaries for God. It is the rice-bowl leadership where one would do what it takes to keep one’s rice bowl from cracking. 

This bowl is often associated with economic incentive. But it covers reputation too. It also covers the zealous protection of status and positions. When the bowl is set up, comfortably receiving the earthly rewards that one’s unquestioned allegiance brings to it, there is little incentive, if at all, for breaking it because it just costs too much. 

Mind you, that “irreparable damage” part comes in two parts, that is, irreparable damage to the organisation also means irreparable damage to one’s rice bowl. 

No one is therefore exempted from this effect because it is in our nature to want to protect that which we have greatly been benefiting/profiting from, whether it is a costly purchase we had recently made or an organization we have given up many years of our life to build up. 

When we are beholden to an edifice, we become that edifice, an integral part of it. And when things go suspiciously wrong, we unknowingly give the responsible part of ourselves to the irresponsible part of the whole. The sum of the parts thus swallows whole the individual parts itself and the two become indistinguishable.

When that becomes a reality, even the best of us as leaders becomes a tool or a means to its end. And as RZIM has shown, the irreparable damage to the faith is even deeper as offices worldwide struggle to remain open with the decision to remove “RZ” from RZIM. 

Sadly, this is the extent of the irreparable damage done to the faith when one protects the rice bowl instead of mustering up the courage to break it because the elements it has been receiving can no longer hold true. Here is what the spokesperson for RZIM has to say: -

“The board’s trust in Ravi led to no further action being taken. With broken hearts, we now see this trust was completely misguided and misplaced, and we are sorry. There were no other situations or cases reported to the Singapore board at that time or subsequently, which raised any suspicion of wrong-doing.” (spokesperson for RZIM). 

Indeed, without hearts broken, you will never have the heart to break your rice bowl for God. 

It is in fact ironic that even in a statement like the one above, the leadership is still able to say that “there were no other situations or cases reported to the Singapore board at that time or subsequently, which raised any suspicion of wrong-doing.” 

Alas, what does it take to slay the dragon of the cult of personality, if inappropriately holding a woman’s hand in public, appearing to be intimate in a Singapore hotel, doesn’t put one on notice of possible misconduct? 

And yes, it could very well be a misunderstanding, but to kill any desire stillborn for an inquiry because RZ said so, or because ”there were no other situations or cases” before and after, or because such “derogatory remarks” would not glorify the Lord, is what contributes to the indestructibility of the rice bowl. 

If you need a clearer case of rice-bowl leadership, here is an extract of the investigation into RZ’s sexual misconduct. 

“At an all-staff virtual meeting in January 2018, after significant details of the Thompson communications had been made public, Mr. Zacharias offered explanations that many staff members found nonsensical. But some staff members reported to us that when they expressed doubts about Mr. Zacharias’s story, they were ignored, marginalized, and accused of disloyalty.”

That is the main issue when the body of Christ becomes a church, and when the church becomes readily and concretely identified with its human leadership because of the numerical and monetary growth the leadership is raking it in. 

Often, when it reaches that point, the Christ in the body is quietly removed, so that the body is taken over by its human leadership. This body-snatching sleight-of-hand is always very discreetly done and members, even leaders, would scarcely notice. 

And because of the by-stander effect and the process of deindividuation, where the sum of its parts takes over the parts, none is the wiser or is courageous enough to call out the crook insidiously embodied in the cult of personality. 

And this is scary because very much like the license to kill that Mr Bond holds, RZ and the many like him are handed over, in the poisoned chalice of leadership, the license to do as one pleases because to even think of doing otherwise would be to cause “irreparable damage to parties concerned and the organization” and to the glory of the Lord. 

...and that is the lesson a genuine believer must never forget when it comes to a leader using God as a means to his end.