Power in Christian Community

A pastor preaches on stage in an evangelical church.

In our culture, power is almost never spoken about positively. Power is that which oppresses minorities and the disadvantaged, hatches conspiracies that make middle Americans subject to elite cabals, and takes advantage of employees, students, and supervisees when there is a “power imbalance.” When someone today says “power” and they’re not the ones that have it, they almost always mean immoral or illegitimate power.

We have at least some good reasons for feeling this way. Americans built “checks and balances” into our form of government because Enlightenment culture had quite reasonably taught our Founders to distrust power. The horrors of the twentieth century, it seems to many, showed that they were right; our system and those like it, not the autocratic or totalitarian ones that worshipped power, stood the test of time and in some measure preserved a respect for human rights. “Power corrupts,” we say. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” And then we infer that Communist and Fascist political systems failed largely because they did not adequately limit power.

Nowadays many feel we have even better reasons to be suspicious of spiritual and church-related power. The decades-long sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church has rocked the faith of millions, and now the Southern Baptist Church is undergoing its own increasingly ugly version of that scandal. Just mention megachurch pastors like Mark Driscoll, evangelists like Ravi Zacharias, and academics like Northern Seminary President Bill Shiell, and many American Christians will reply with a sad shake of the head and a homily about the need to hold them accountable.

Most importantly, many of us have experienced heartbreak because of the way power was wielded in our own church experiences. Perhaps we felt judged or unwelcome, manipulated or deceived. Perhaps we or a loved one experienced still worse things from church people, even at the hands of those responsible for teaching those communities.  

Yes, we do need to hold powerful people accountable, perhaps especially in the church. The experience of recent decades has taught us as much. However, I fear that in learning these important lessons we have also bought into a harmful myth about power, one that has left Christians confused about what role, if any, it plays among the people of God. It’s that myth that I’d like to examine a little more closely here.

Many people feel passionately that even in church power should represent us in much the way democratically elected politicians represent constituents. Those in power aren’t necessarily any more spiritually mature, holy, or insightful than the rest of us, we say. They may well be less so—power corrupts, after all. So why allow them to make choices for the rest of us? Why give them any more power than strictly necessary? Their role shouldn’t be to decide what’s best for us or to mediate between us and God. Rather, clergy and church leadership should follow the will of the people as best they can. God is, after all, working among us all and not just through leadership.

There is a lot of truth to this line of thinking. For those not still enthralled by the Mark Driscolls of the world, it may well be a deeply ingrained mental habit, one that for a certain type of American believer is almost synonymous with Christian practice. We have, in a word, become very comfortable with our hypervigilant stance toward authority, and that’s probably because it makes us feel like we’re the ones in the driver’s seat.  

But there’s a problem. What do we do about biblical passages like 1 Corinthians 4:18-21?

Some of you have become arrogant, as if I were not coming to you. But I will come to you very soon, if the Lord is willing, and then I will find out not only how these arrogant people are talking, but what power they have. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a rod of discipline, or shall I come in love and with a gentle spirit?

Was Paul an authoritarian personality? Other passages in his letters make that interpretation hard to sustain. The truth, however, may be even more difficult to swallow: Paul thought that the use of power by human beings is an inextricable part of life in the kingdom of God. Elsewhere Paul tells the Corinthians that God gave him the right to exercise this power:“So even if I boast somewhat freely about the authority the Lord gave us for building you up rather than tearing you down, I will not be ashamed of it” (2 Cor 10:8).

Let’s rewind a couple paragraphs and play it back slow. Paul thinks (1) that power is part of the kingdom, (2) that, in some ecclesial situations and to some extent, God gave Christians (including him) power over other Christians, and (3) that God bestows this authority to build up the church. Rewind a little further, and we learn how authority builds up the church: upon the foundation of the gospel about Jesus Christ (1 Cor 3:11)—and only upon that foundation. His authority, in other words, is ultimately founded upon his charge to preach the gospel and that alone.

Many questions naturally arise here. What’s the proper structure of power in the church if there is one? How can we avoid falling back into traditionalist approaches to authority? What happens when power is abused? And these are just the tip of the iceberg.

I want to untactfully avoid all those questions and instead ask what I think is a more urgent question for us: What does distrust of power or authority do within a Christian community?

It does some good things. Abuse by those in authority is made more difficult and is more readily perceived. Laypeople feel empowered and responsible for their own Christian walks. The priesthood of all believers sometimes means that unlikely people speak the gospel in unlikely and—just for that reason—powerful ways.

But it also does serious damage to the community in ways we may not readily perceive.

Think with me about what power is. Merriam-Webster defines power first as “the ability to act or produce an effect” and only then “possession of control, authority, or influence over others.” Distrust of power can manifest itself in wanting to involve too many people in too many decisions. We all know what happens then. Either nothing gets done, people become meeting-weary, or both. Depending on our community structure and the situation, we might have done better to entrust the power of decision to one person or group.

But getting nothing done isn’t the worst effect that distrust of power has in a community. Neither is it the significant emotional toll upon those who have power or the potential for strife that creates.   

The worst effect distrust of power has in a community is upon the spiritual life of the individual herself. God disciplines and disciples us through other human beings, above all through those to whom we have submitted ourselves in some sort of relationship—a relationship that may even have an element of hierarchy. Without the discipline of that relative submission, we will get nowhere in the spiritual life.

In most churches, elders, pastors, priests, and bishops provide leadership and are given the power and authority necessary to carry out their particular role in the church. While SMC communities also have leaders and those with pastoral roles, it may be that our continuing discipleship is most dependent on our willingness to submit to the will of the community as a whole. So long as the community remains within the “law of Christ” (as Paul calls it), trying to tease out the implications of the gospel in our day and in our life together, our progress in the life of faith will usually be tied up in our willingness to submit to our brothers and sisters. Which means that at times the community will lovingly, gently exercise power over us, doing so by the Spirit for our good and others’.

This happens in a variety of ways, both formal (through a person’s position in the community) and informal (personality, experience, and spiritual maturity). A person’s knowledge base or professional background might be a source of power in the community, but so might a particular charism or gift of the Spirit. Power takes on countless forms, and discerning which source of power should direct the community in a given moment or area requires creative attention to the contours of the biblical story and the loving God who is the protagonist of that story. And that means readiness to trust and submit to others—sometimes even in sensitive areas—when they have that power.

This is at times a difficult pill to swallow for many of us, including me. But it sure does appear necessary. After all, if we cannot follow the lead of other human beings whom we can see, how will we ever learn to rest in the commands and promises of God whom we cannot?