Thoughts of Injelitance and Related

The British author C. Northcote Parkinson coined the term "injelitance," to describe an aspect of human behavior. It is described as a combination of incompetence and jealousy. There is much talk, and fairly often, that injelitance is a dominant behavior in churches, that it must be stopped, that we should talk about it openly and often.

I have two suggestions in this.

First, I would like to suggest that all who are opinionated thusly, should have several private conversations with practicing pastors who appear to exhibit the symptoms, and see if the opinions usually hold. I have done this myself, quite a few times now, and I think they will not. There are many other motivations, good ones, which masquerade with like appearance.

Second, I would like to suggest that if we are in Christ, our Lord has commanded us to love our enemies and our brothers, to humble ourselves to all, and to first serve the people we would seek to lead. If we stand apart and label others with such words as "injelitance", we serve no one except the enemy who would destroy the Bride if he could. Therefore I suggest that whenever we find ourselves tempted in this way, we should either be openly kind and patient with those whose behavior tempts us, or simply keep peace.

Jonathan Brickman
Please do email me. I hope to learn from you.
jeb@joshuacorps.org

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