Tyler Johnson, MDiv
Tyler is a pastor, a teacher, and a former NASA engineer. He loves to explore truth through God’s word and God’s works. He lives in Kansas with his wife and four children and spends what little free-time he has practicing tae kwon do and pondering the mysteries of light.
“My God is so big,
So strong and so mighty
There’s nothing my God cannot do”
These were words I sang often as a kid in church. I think there were hand motions that went along with them, too. They are good words. They are true words. But I have found myself rethinking the image of God that they offer. For they offer primarily a God of Power and so much of what is happening in the world today, and much of what I have been reading lately, has made me rather uncomfortable with a God of Power.
Let me start by clearly stating that I am not questioning God’s omnipotence or sovereignty. These are good doctrines, and I affirm them in all the ways that they help properly articulate God’s nature. But God has more attributes than just omnipotence. And I am inclined to say that power is not the most essential part of who God is.
If you’ve read the book Jesus and John Wayne, by Kristin Kobes Du Mez then you are already familiar with some of the deep ways that Evangelical Christian men have sanctified the pursuit and use of power. If you haven’t read it, then perhaps you’ve listened to the podcast, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, or maybe you’ve followed the stories of Christian leader after Christian leader abusing power or abusing women. They all tell a similar tale, of powerful people, usually men, engaging in immoral activities and harming real people along the way. It is heartbreaking.
I’m inclined to think that at the root of this epidemic of abusive leaders lies some warped and perverted theology. Let’s explore.
First a bit of history. A few hundred years ago, several things were happening in the Western world. The Reformation was reshaping the church, the scientific revolution was taking off, and the Age of Enlightenment was dawning. With all that change came some shifts in the way people imagined God and talked about God.
One such shift came with the philosopher Francis Bacon. Bacon was convinced that the essential nature of God was total power, and he believed that humans were at their most human when they were exerting their power over nature. You can see how this philosophy has taken hold in our modern world as we use our technological prowess to exert exploitative dominion over the natural world with little to no thought about how we should or should not wield such power over God’s creation.
The idea of a God of Power was important to Calvin’s theology and can still be seen in the Presbyterian and Baptist churches that stemmed from his branch of the Reformation. It is/was especially evident in the Neo-Reformed movement of which Mark Driscoll was a leading voice.
The main problem with Power (or Sovereignty) being the essential attribute of God lies in the path that follows from this belief. As humans we are made in the image of God. But that image has been distorted by sin. So none of us reflect the full image of God, which means that there are ways to reflect God better, and ways to reflect God worse. If God’s essential attribute is Power, then it follows that we will be more like God if we gain more power. With more power we become more fully human. With more power we become closer to God. Which leads to the idea that the powerful are the best interpreters of Scripture and the best exemplars of the Christian life.
When the path is laid out like that, it becomes easy to see how distorted it is. But let me suggest that this is our default way of thinking as modern Western Christians. Deep down in our minds we have connected success and influence with truth and holiness. We tend to trust the thoughts and opinions of the powerful over any others.
This trajectory is changing. Over the past several years there has been an emphasis on raising up and listening to the voices of the marginalized: the voices of minorities, women, the Black community, etc. We are learning to hear from a much more diverse group of voices. This is great. But I’m not sure that it is really shifting our fundamental trust in power.
If our response to the abuse of power that we’ve seen over the past years is to get more women and more minorities into power, then it would seem that are trying to fight fire with fire. Certainly, the last several years (or much longer) have revealed what it looks like for power to pervert masculinity. But the problem is not in masculinity, it is in power. If the patriarchy was successfully smashed and a matriarchy was established, if the future truly was female, then I’m pretty sure we would eventually see what it looks like for power to pervert femininity.
The problem is power. Power is never neutral. Like greed, it is always hungry and never satisfied. Or in the words of theologian Paul Tyson, “Power is its own thing, it does not exist for the common person, or the common good, or common sense; it exists for its own preservation within the existing structures of power, wherever it is found.”
Allow me to suggest the possibility that the subtlest move of the devil these days is convincing the church that power can be used for God’s glory, that we can do more good by being in power than we can from a more humble and subservient role. The history of the Church suggests otherwise.
Long before Francis Bacon emphasized God’s power, the church father Augustine focused on a different essential attribute of God: love. For Augustine, and for most of the Christian tradition before and after him, God’s most fundamental attribute was love. And being made in God’s image means that we become more fully human as we learn to love more like God.
In fact, Augustine believed that love was essential to properly interpreting scripture. He wrote, “So anyone who thinks that he has understood the divine scriptures or any part of them, but cannot by his understanding build up this double love of God and neighbor, has not yet succeeded in understanding them.” Commenting on this passage, Hans Boersma writes, “Love is the purpose of Scripture, and so to arrive at love is to arrive at Scripture’s telos. So much is this the case that Augustine insists that someone who is truly loving no longer needs the Scriptures.”
I almost hate to make this emphasis because of how empty our idea of love often is these days. But I’m pretty sure that erring on the side of love - even a flat, sentimentalized love that asks nothing of its object - is closer to the character of Christ than erring on the side of power. Or as Paul wrote:
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
- Philippians 2:5-11
References and Further Readings
Jesus and John Wayne, Kristin Kobes Du Mez
Five Things Theologians Wish Biblical Scholars Knew, Hans Boersma
Heavenly Participation, Hans Boersma
Returning to Reality, Paul Tyson
To Change the World, James Davidson Hunter