Proximity Is Not Power: Rethinking Leadership, Faith, and the Common Good #MLKDayEdition

Dr. King reminded us that “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable.” What he understood—and what we often forget—is that power without moral grounding is not power at all. It is domination. Control. Performance.

And somewhere along the way, we began confusing Godly power with worldly power.

That truth is what’s been sitting with me this MLK Day.

Last week, Garlin Gilchrist announced that he would be stepping out of the Michigan gubernatorial race and would instead pursue Secretary of State. When I read the news, something rose up in me.

Not confusion.

Not disappointment.

A stirring.

What followed unsettled me more than the decision itself.

The applause.

The relief.

The framing of stepping aside as strategy.

But it wasn’t just the media coverage. It was the conversations with family and friends. The group chats. The social media reactions. The collective sigh that seemed to say, this is a good move for him.

That broad acceptance is what brought me here—because this moment isn’t shaped by one person’s decision alone. It’s shaped by how quickly we surrendered to it.

I support Garlin Gilchrist. And to be clear, I believe he can be an excellent Secretary of State.

In fact, long before his time as Lieutenant Governor, I thought his original bid to become Detroit’s City Clerk made profound sense. As the City of Detroit’s first Director of Innovation and Technology (DoIT), his leadership was rooted in systems, access, and modernization. A move into the Clerk’s office would have positioned him to fundamentally reshape how citizens vote, engage, and participate in local democracy—making electoral politics more transparent, more accessible, and more future-facing.

When that path didn’t materialize, his transition from local leadership to statewide office as Lieutenant Governor was not only impressive, it was expansive. It signaled growth, trust, and capacity. And while I can see the relevance and experience he brings to the role of Secretary of State, the tension I’m sitting with is this: we are allowing politics to position leadership instead of standing firmly in the truth that some people bring brilliance, integrity, and capacity to any seat they occupy.

For a system that claims to be we the people, we are allowing it to be engineered by specific agendas rather than oriented toward the common good.

Which leads me to the question that feels strangely absent from public discourse:

If not the Lieutenant Governor, then who is more positioned to lead—and by what standard?

I’ve done my research. Historically, Michigan has never elected a sitting Lieutenant Governor to the governorship, except in a case where a governor was appointed to a federal cabinet role. I understand that history. But we are not back then. We are here—now—charged with discerning what leadership looks like in this moment.

And this is where the inquiry becomes unavoidable.

Why are we allowing money to shift the trajectory of what we believe is possible?

If funding determines viability, then we’ve already accepted a future aligned more with political machines than with human life. When donor interests, political infrastructures, and oligarch logic define the boundaries of leadership, we stop asking what serves the people and start adjusting our dreams to fit the system.

Democracy was never meant to be we the money.

It is we the people, under God.

When we allow financial backing to outweigh faith in people, vision, and responsibility, we quietly undermine the very foundation we claim to stand on. We begin to believe that without money, nothing can move—and that belief shrinks our collective imagination.

And this is bigger than one race because just being in the room is not enough.

Proximity without authority leaves us dependent. Representation without organization leaves us vulnerable. Too many of us have grown comfortable occupying space—invited, adjacent, visible—without autonomy or accountability for outcomes.

Most of us aren’t even close to power. Garlin Gilchrist being the first Black Lieutenant Governor is the exception, not the norm.

What we’ve normalized instead is comfort—being near influence without bearing the weight of leadership. We’ve learned how to survive inside systems without claiming the responsibility to govern them.

And here’s the harder truth: we are afraid of Godly power.

Because this demands courage.

It demands sacrifice.

It demands accountability beyond applause.

Worldly power offers safety, access, and optics. Godly power requires obedience, conviction, and the willingness to be unpopular.

Dr. King understood this as he evolved. His work moved beyond integration toward economic justice, organized people power, and moral autonomy. He knew that proximity to institutions without real authority would leave us present, but still living in a burning house.

And he said so anyway.

He was unpopular anyway.

He was targeted anyway.

He was willing to die anyway.

That kind of faith-rooted courage isn’t symbolic. It demands something of us now—not about this race, but about the future we are building.

So the real questions are deeper:

What kind of power are we seeking?

Who are we accountable to—donors or destiny?

What would it look like to trust God’s authority more than worldly approval?

On this MLK Day, while many of us gather, quote dreams, and celebrate comfort, I’m asking which side of his legacy we are actually honoring.

Because Dr. King didn’t just believe in progress.

He believed in righteous power.

Power ordered under God.

Power willing to disrupt systems for the sake of life.

If we are serious about honoring that legacy, belief must become obedience.

Organization must become authority. And proximity must give way to purpose.

Hindsight may be 20/20—but foresight is the responsibility of those who claim to be building the future.

Peace.