The Unlikely Leader

The Unlikely Leader

If Jimmy could make it, anyone could. Rejected by his parents and shunned by his schoolmates, he retreated into a lonely world of self-loathing. His only comfort was stuffing himself with food until he became grotesquely obese. His flabby white face was covered with pimples and scarred with acne. He reeked of body odor and stuttered whenever he opened his mouth.

One day everything changed for this social outcast. As he walked down a London side street, he looked into a doorway and saw a ragtag collection of fellow losers seated on folding chairs. A sign told him that this was the meeting hall of the Communist Party. A well-dressed man greeted him warmly with this line: “No matter who you are, we can turn you into a leader of men.”

Jimmy took the seat closest to the door. The speaker was Douglas Hyde, the editor of the Communist newspaper the Daily Worker. Hyde concluded his mesmerizing speech with a bold claim: “I don’t care who you are, if you give yourself to the Communist Party, we will turn you into a leader.” A tiny seed of hope was planted in Jimmy’s heart. He waddled to the podium and stuttered, “C-c-c-comrade, I w-w-w-want you to t-t-turn me into a l-l-leader of m-m-men.”

Hyde later wrote in his book, Dedication and Leadership, that he groaned within. He had never seen sorrier human material. But he had made a promise. So he gulped and welcomed Jimmy into the brotherhood. The new convert was sent out to the mean streets of London to hand out the Daily Worker. He was ridiculed, spit upon, and assaulted. When he returned with his soul battered and bruised, he whimpered, “I c-c-can’t d-d-do it!” But his comrades wouldn’t let him give up. Slowly but inexorably, Jimmy was transformed from a loser into a leader. The despairing stutterer became a dynamic speaker. The former recluse became the greatest union organizer the Communist Party of Great Britain had ever seen. Years later, his death was front-page news. Factories shut down as thousands attended his funeral.

There is a postscript to Jimmy’s story. It has to do with Douglas Hyde, the man who first gave him hope. Hyde left the Communist Party and embraced Christianity. He believed that Christ offered more hope than did Lenin. But when Hyde wrote Dedication and Leadership in 1956, disillusionment with the church was setting in—in particular, the Pope’s harsh treatment of those on the political left. Hyde said that although Communists believe humans are soulless products of evolution, they often have more faith in their message to transform people than do most Christians. By the time he died in 1966, he had moved away from organized religion. On his deathbed he declared himself to be an “agnostic Christian.”

How tragic! Douglas Hyde looked at the church of Jesus rather than the Jesus of the church. Jesus took twelve losers who were misfits like Jimmy Reid and transformed them to change the world. He still does that two thousand years later. If we remember this truth, we will never lose heart in what he can do for us and others:

God formed us. Sin deformed us. Jesus will transform us.

Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

2 Corinthians 5:17