PASTORS AND POWER
A large body of
literature has been produced in recent decades emphasizing that pastors and
other church leaders are to be servants. Phrases similar to “servant leaders”
and discussions of the proper use of pastoral power are common. What has been
missing, however, is an analysis of the relationship of pastors and power in
light of two crucial elements of the larger framework—namely, the nature of the
“Principalities and Powers” that influence human use of power; and second, the
character of God and the way that God chooses to work out the Triune purposes
for the cosmos.
The Principalities
and Powers
Contrary to the
views promulgated by some contemporary novels that the Principalities and
Powers are little demons that fly around spitting sulfur and making trouble for
human beings (I mock to stress the point), biblical vocabulary actually
distinguishes the Powers as a separate category from angels and spirits in the
entire semantic field of all the various kinds of evil forces (cf. my Powers,
Weakness, and the Tabernacling of God [Eerdmans, 2001], and my Ph.D. dissertation, “The Concept of
‘the Principalities and Powers’ in the Works of Jacques Ellul”
[The University of Notre Dame, 1992; University Microfilms #9220014]).
Under the headship
of Satan (Lucifer, the Prince of Lies, the Devil), there are many forces and
forms of evil. On one end of the spectrum are those supernatural beings that
many people in North American society like to discount, but which are taken
seriously by Christians in other parts of the world. For example, an important
part of Christian mission in
Between these two
poles are the Principalities and Powers. They are not supernatural beings—in
fact, they are normal products of human culture, such as money or government or
technology—but exert a supernatural power beyond that of mere human
capabilities. For example, why does money have such control over so many people
(including each of us)? It is just paper, and yet most of us at some point in
our lives fall prey to its influence and either have too much of it because we
hoard it, covet it because we do not have enough of it, or are stingy with it
because we do not trust the generosity of God and have not learned generosity
ourselves.
I detail that
example because it illustrates that in many ways money can overstep its proper
vocation and become a god in our lives. In the same way, all the Principalities
and Powers, which were originally created for good, participate in the fallenness of the world and tend to function in ways that
violate their created purpose and ensnare human beings in workings of evil. Jesus
exposed and triumphed over the fallen Powers of money (Judas), government
(Herod and Pilate), and religion (Caiaphas) in his work of redemption.
The church, too, is
one of the Powers. As such, even though it was created for good, it can also
violate its proper vocation and function in evil modes contrary to God’s
purposes—unless its members are vigilant. You and I could list many ways that
institutional churches have done so in the past and continue to do so in the
present. Our purpose here, however, is merely to set this background of the
biblical notion of the Principalities so that we can more clearly understand
why pastors must be extremely careful about their use of power, lest they go
beyond their proper vocation and abuse, misuse, or over-use power in
destructive ways.
The Vocation of
Pastors
The pastor’s vocation,
according to Eph 4:12-13, is to “equip the saints for the work of ministry, for
building up the body of Christ” so that the whole universal Church can be
unified in faith, know God’s Son, and reach maturity. Jesus underscores the pastoral
vocation in John 21 when he tells Peter to feed his sheep and tend his lambs.
These two texts and
their images are extraordinarily helpful for judging whether a pastor is
misusing power. How does a pastor teach the doctrines of the faith? Sheep
cannot be force-fed. Does the leader try to control the congregation’s beliefs
and behaviors or pass on the heritage of Christian faith and life by gentle
invitation, tender nurturing, and joyous proclamation?
Consider all the ways
a pastor could use power to “get things done” in a parish. If the clergyperson
will be true to the pastoral role of equipping the saints for ministry so that
their contributions build up Christ’s Body, then what is required is to uplift
and utilize the parishioners’ own spiritual gifts and skills and character
rather than to manipulate them into doing what the pastor wants.
So that the Church can
be unified, a pastor’s work cannot exert power that favors one side over
another in conflicts. Instead, the church leader will work to reconcile
opponents so that, together, all members come as one Body to the fullness of
the stature of Christ.
These are but a few
of the many examples we could cite to guide church leaders in their personal
use of power. However, we must also look more deeply at how clergypersons are
influenced by the Principalities and Powers to abuse their own power in
ministry. For example, institutional churches act as fallen Powers when they
make numbers their primary goal. Teachers who succumb to this mistaken thinking
misuse their power by employing it to do what “attracts people,” instead of
what contributes to their becoming equipped for the costly life of discipleship
that leads to the maturity of the Body and the extension of God’s Kingdom. This
is most evident these days in the worship life of congregations, for—far too
often!—pastors use their leadership power to turn worship into entertainment
instead of an encounter with the God who calls us to take up our cross and to
suffer for the sake of the world.
Similarly, the
Principality of money frequently perverts pastors’ use of power, for their
energies become directed toward maintaining a church institution instead of
feeding God's sheep throughout the world. Again, the Power of technology can
distract a clergyperson from genuine face-to-face tending of lambs by means of
the sometimes dehumanizing powers of such conveniences as e-mail and cell
phones. The Principalities of government in our world
rely on violence to accomplish their purposes; entertainments in our culture
depend on violence for their appeal. In such a society, a pastoral leader is
excessively tempted to use means that violate the integrity of other people or
to use other forms of violence (even doing violence to the Word when it is not
spoken truly) in order to stay in control.
The Powers in our
culture (as they function in the media especially) have made fame and influence
highly seductive to pastors and teachers, with the result that they can easily
abuse their power in efforts to gain and wield prominence and predominance. But
that is not the way God works for the salvation of the cosmos. For this reason
my other concern in this essay is to look more deeply at the way Jesus dealt
with power, since the pastor's first call to ministry is Christ's command,
“Follow me.”
God’s Way of Working
in the World
From the beginning
of the Scriptures God performed mighty acts of power—the exquisite, massive,
intricate, and vast wonders of creation; the high drama and forceful
deliverance of the ten plagues and the dividing of the
The most
astonishing, of course, is the Incarnation. Ponder Christ’s enormous humility
that the Creator of the cosmos should become a creature, born in poverty,
accompanied throughout his life by every imaginable kind of suffering, destined
for torturous death and abandonment. When Jesus was treated
cruelly, he did not respond with power, but submitted to (and thereby overcame
forever) the acts of power directed against himself. By refraining from
power, he reconciled the world to the Trinity and thereafter bequeathed to us
the same ministry of reconciliation.
More than anyone,
the apostle Paul realized that Christ’s weakness was the model for the way God’s
people, and especially pastoral leaders, should work in the world. In 2 Cor 13:4 he stresses, “For he was crucified in weakness,
but lives by the power of God. For we are weak in him, but in dealing with you
we will live with him by the power of God.”
Because of this
model of serving in weakness, Paul can exalt in 2 Cor
4:7 that we have the treasure of the Gospel in the clay pots of ourselves, so
that the extraordinary power may be God’s and not ours. More forcefully, Paul
can accept the Word that grace is sufficient for him, for his power is “brought
to its end” in weakness (a more accurate translation of the original Greek of 2
Cor 12:9). For that reason he can “boast all the more
gladly” of his weaknesses so that Christ's power tabernacles in him.
Such an attitude
frees Paul (and us) to be “content with weaknesses, insults, hardships,
persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ, for whenever I am weak,
then I am strong.” Though it is hard for us to believe (especially because our
culture functions primarily through power), God can accomplish the Triune
purposes much more effectively through a pastor’s weakness than through his/her
practices of power, for then the power is God’s—a power of divine humility,
love, and reconciliation.
Pastors and Power
With a full
awareness, then, of how easily our own desire for control and the temptations
offered by the Principalities and Powers functioning in our culture draw us
into misuses of power, and with a firm recognition that God wants to work in
the world through our weakness, pastors will more painstakingly be able to
employ God’s power according to God’s purposes. Any power will come from a
character not of hubris, but of humility. It will be the power of knowing one’s
weaknesses and rejoicing in the way that God tabernacles in those weaknesses to
work for good.
As the pastor leads
worship, preaches, teaches, offers spiritual direction, counsels, administers,
and serves the needs of the local community and the larger world, God’s love
will be the empowerment. That means not trying to effect change, but
encouraging transformation; not wanting to influence, but to invite; not
exacting, but equipping.
The pastor’s goal,
then, is not to achieve personal success, but to participate in God’s work of
reconciling the cosmos. The power will come from engaging in what the Trinity
is already doing in the world; its shape will be an ambassadorship for the
Kingdom of God; its hope will be the assurance that God’s Kingdom has already
broken into our era in the anti-power submission of Christ to the Powers that
led to their defeat and promises us God's eventual triumph over all the forces
of evil.
Pastoral Authority
All that this essay
has been saying does not eliminate pastoral authority; instead, it reconfigures
it. Pastoral authority is understood not in terms of power, but of legitimacy. It
is specifically the authority of the Word (both in the sense of Christ himself
and of the Scriptures which bear testimony to the Triune God) and the authority
of the Christian community across space and time, in whose name the pastor is
called to serve.
I stress legitimacy
because one of the tenets of postmodern philosophy is that any meta-narrative
that claims to be universal is a bid for power. By that reading the Christian
story, which its adherents believe is true for all people, disguises the
believers’ true intention of exerting power over everyone else. But, to the
contrary, the Christian meta-narrative, an account that encompasses the entire
cosmos, is one of grace and love and reconciliation instead of power. God comes
to everyone with invitation, not coercion. Though the Trinity is sovereign, the
LORD never messes with human free will. God desires
glad obedience, not forced compliance. God courts instead of compels.
When the pastor
exercises God’s kind of non-power in the name (that is, the character) of God,
it is a powerful authority.
By Marva J. Dawn, Teaching Fellow in Spiritual Theology at
Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia, and theologian, author, and
educator with “Christians Equipped for Ministry” in Vancouver, Washington.