Christian Leadership in the Antarctic

Prior to a few months ago, I had heard of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s expedition to Antarctica because of the notes to T. S. Eliot’s modern anti-epic The Waste Land, but I knew nothing of the particulars. A friend of mine shared a copy with me and left written in the endpages a note that this story—in Alfred Lansing’s classic telling, Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage—had often been suggested to her as a great book on leadership. Even given this thematic cue, I was shocked at the theological depth of Shackleton’s care for his crew. They encountered enormous difficulties after their ship, the Endurance, became locked between two floes of ices and crushed in its embrace, prompting a journey which traversed over 850 miles of antarctic ice and sea, but in collaboration with providence, Shackleton ensured that all twenty-eight men aboard returned alive to tell the tale. Read Full Article »