![]() ![]() ![]() This essay looks at the relationship of Elijah and Elisha as it is portrayed in 1 and 2 Kings to see what insights may be found regarding the problem of succession. 2 It has led also to an engagement with relevant biblical literature. For instance, a recent collection of essays on the “leadership traditions” of various Judaeo-Christian communities includes the question of how succession handled, including recruitment, cultivation, education, and support. The question of succession itself has therefore received fresh attention in the literature of leadership. In any and all of these contexts, the actual event of succession can be triumphant, or disastrous, or anything in between, and if we have spent any time at all in a church the examples come easily to mind. In between these approaches is the representative model, seen notably in Presbyterian communions, that looks to assemblies of delegates to fill vacant pulpits and thus to maintain the presence and witness of the people of God. A congregational or independent church looks to local decision-making: the church membership, or perhaps the choice of the retiring minister. Churches with episcopal structures place the authority for decisions about succession in higher levels of the episcopacy. In the political world, the United States handles presidential succession in a different way than Great Britain handles the succession of the monarch, or of the prime minister. ![]() Succession looks different in different contexts. The question of succession of leadership is important if the impact of any given institution is to outlive the limited years of administration of a particular leader. ![]()
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