Diane Langberg’s Theology of Power

Can (Worldly) Power Be Redeemed (from Abuse)?

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In the book Reckoning with Power, I make the case for there being two powers at work in the world, not one. There is worldly power and then there is God’s power, and the two are starkly different.

God’s power works entirely differently than worldly power. Worldly power, as I define it, is power that is exercised in autonomy from God. Worldly power is “power over” and operates in human terms via position, coercion, subtle ideological means, etc., to get person B. to do what person A. (the one exercising power) wants them to do. Worldly power is always limited, can only preserve not redeem, and is open to abuse. Godly power is always power “with,” works by the Spirit, to draw people into His love. God’s power, released in Jesus, by the Spirit, never coerces. God’s power forgives, reconciles, heals, renews, transforms. God’s power is at work among us, not just in us, and works to redeem the world. Though completely different from worldly power, God’s power is nonetheless power, immeasurably great (Eph 1:19-23), able to accomplish more than we can ask or imagine (Eph 3:20).

I recognize that this stark distinction is viewed as un-realistic (in the Niebuhrian sense). And requires multiple levels of complexity as worked out in the lives of Christians in the world. All that is in my book Reckoning with Power. Nonetheless, I believe the distinction is helpful and necessary for Christian leaders in navigating power and keeping worldly power from going off the rails, which leads to abuse, trauma, and destruction.

Nonetheless, Christians continue to blur the two powers in our leadership practices.. In doing so, we set ourselves up for the use of abusive power. In ch. 5 in Reckoning with Power, I dig into the theology of power that enables three of the more popular avenues that can lead Christians to blur the two powers. These avenues are helpful in their own ways. But they can tempt us to over-use worldly power and marginalize godly power from our lives. In the book, these three avenues are represented by Andy Crouch, Diane Langberg and Dominique Gilliard. In this post. I want to riff on the impulse to solve the problem of abusive worldly power through disciplining it. Instead of rejecting worldly power for God’s power, as I believe the church is formed to do, we use tools to discipline it. But will this work? I explore Diane Langberg’s popular book Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church to answer this question.

The Dangers of Keeping (Worldly) Power Safe from Abuse

Diane Langberg’s book Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church seeks to understand power in Christian leaders and churches that goes abusive. She offers ways of  “redeeming power from abuse” by recognizing its dangers and putting guardrails around it to keep those in power from abusing it. In so doing however, I warn against being enticed to believe that we can rehabilitate (worldly) power for God’s kingdom. If we do not distinguish between the two powers and engage each one accordingly, we will be tempted “to play God” all over again (my critique of Andy Crouch’s theology of power in the previous post found HERE). Abuse will lay in waiting, for the next occasion it can wield abuse in Jesus’ name.

As a therapist and authority on trauma and abuse, Langberg offers interventions, ways of noticing red flags in leaders, and approaches to confronting the systems that enable abusive leaders. She instructs churches on how to shape the character of leaders toward Christ and Christlike ways of using power, thereby avoiding abuse. It is a sobering and yet hopeful presentation of a way forward for churches in the midst of abusive leadership and toxic cultures.

But could these same processes be the means to tempt us into thinking that we can be the ones, by virtue of our relationship to Christ, who can use (worldly) power in a way that is safe from abuse. Langberg makes us aware of the abusive dangers of this power. She urges us to be vigilant against the abuse of such power. But Langberg, like Crouch, does not describe an alternative power at work in Christ that requires an entirely different human posture towards power. And so I worry that Langberg tempts Christians into using power in a way that is susceptible to the hubris and dangers of exercising worldly power on behalf of God.

Langberg’s Theology of Power

Langberg states, as her opening thesis, that “power is inherent in being human. Even the most vulnerable among us have power. How we use it or withhold it determines our impact on others” (p. 3). She defines power as “having the capacity to do something, to act or produce an effect, to influence people or events, or to have authority.” “By our sheer presence in this world, we, God’s image bearers, have power” (p. 4). And so Langberg, like Crouch (see previous post), and like Niebuhr, flattens out power into one power, worldly “power over.” There is no distinction between two powers. Power is ubiquitous, and we cannot live without it, so we must choose how to use it.

Like Crouch, Langberg turns to the Genesis creation story to frame the nature of power. She says, “God made humans who bear his likeness and told them to rule.” Man and woman together “are to take the power God granted them and use it for good.” But they succumbed to the temptation to be like God, and so they “used their power to choose evil when the power ought to have borne the likeness of God and been used to choose good”(p. 6). And so, as with Crouch, for Langberg power is power and is given from God, and the problem with power is that it is used wrongfully, for evil purposes. She does not recognize what Reckoning with Power outlines in chapter 2 (p. 51), that God’s power and His very agency was usurped by humans in the account of the fall in Genesis. This produced a human way of power, exercised in autonomy from God, that is fundamentally different than the way God works. And so, if we are to participate with God in His power, our very agency to worldly power must change so that we can submit to and participate in God’s power.

The Drive to Control of Power Over Never Gets Dislodged

At one point in the book Langberg seems to grant a nod to this dynamic. She uses several stories of persons using power in good ways. In the middle of this section, she describes how “godly power is derivative, it comes from a source outside us. It is always used under God’s authority . . . exercised in humility . . . as his servants . . . for the end goal of bringing glory to God”(p. 13). Wonderfully, Langberg describes submission to God as the posture necessary in order for us to come “under” God’s power. Langberg comes so close to recognizing a different power, a different source of that power, and a different posture necessary to participate in that power. She comes close to everything I describe in Reckoning With Power as the right side of power.

Nonetheless, the whole construct of exercising power “over” others never gets dislodged. In the ensuing stories that illustrate her understanding of power, there may be hints of how God is at work through His power, but ultimately it is human persons in charge exercising the power. The Brazilian pastor living among the alcoholics, the Arab woman speaking truth to power, the gracious sheikh are all illustrations of how “God would have us exercise our power,” in her words (p. 16). Power is our power, to be used in certain ways, and we remain the ones in control of it.

We Can Solve Toxic Character with Formation? Toxic Cultures With Better Cultures?

Langberg asks how so much abuse happens in the church at the hands of leaders. She says it starts with self-deception. “We are too generous in our self-trust” (pp. 31-33). She shows how even Hitler used Christian ideals to deceive himself and a people. Her solution? “If we follow [Christ], then whatever we do as individuals in our families, our churches, our communities, or this world that does not look like Christ, we will both repent of and abandon”(p. 42). We just need integrity, so that “words and flesh are . . . one” (p.53). Jesus is our example. Follow him.

But we must ask Langberg how so many claiming to sincerely follow Christ fall into the snares of using worldly power abusively all in the name of following Jesus. As she already says, their own self-deception gets them. And so it is the failure to distinguish between two powers that is the culprit. We need to discern between the two powers. Without distinguishing between the two powers, we are ever tempted to take control of worldly power and use it in God’s unchallengeable name. It is, I contend, the recipe for abuse.

Langberg describes how “worldly” power (without describing it this way) works in toxic systems. There is hierarchy in it: “power over.” She describes how “close followers” of powerful leaders protect their leaders and the “positions and the power that goes with them” that they hold in these systems. It all works together in a toxic cocktail. Then the followers of these leaders take on the identity of being part of the “we” who commit allegiance to the one with “power over” at all costs because their very life/meaning is at stake. So the whole system gets ordained by God. Langberg incisively describes how the whole system develops to protect the (worldly) power that abuses people (pp.79-83).

Langberg seems to believe we will solve this power’s problems by recognizing it, calling it out, and keeping these toxic effects in check (what I describe as the “culture solution” in Reckoning With Power). In so doing we can create a culture that is able to order power toward goodness. All the while, however, “power over” still operates, simmering within the system.

Langberg proposes, like Crouch, that the shaping of the character of the leader is paramount to the problem of power. She makes the rather stunning statement that “the Atlantic slave trade, segregation in US schools, and the Nazi regime were all powerful systems that were changed by one person—William Wilberforce, Martin Luther King Jr., Dietrich Bonhoeffer—influencing others” (p.89). As a result, we might be tempted by Langberg to think that I, as a single individual, can make a difference with my power if I will but take care to shape my character before God. We might be tempted to believe it is up to me to take hold of worldly power and use it to change the world.

But another story is at work behind Langberg’s heroes (which I outline in the epilogue of Reckoning With Power). An on-the-ground abolitionist movement stood behind Wilberforce and behind the SNCC prayer meetings of white and black persons together taking place throughout the Jim Crow South that gave birth to Martin Luther King Jr.; and indeed Bonhoeffer died in a concentration camp, and his life impacted the world only after he had been martyred. These networks, interrelational grids of people groups, and martyrdom were all signs of a different power at work than worldly power.

In Summary

There is much good work in Langberg’s book. Her dissection of character and how it gets toxified by worldly power and then supported by a culture that itself turns toxic is a clinic for all who lead and work in churches (and other Christian institutions). Her discussions of “sitting with trauma,” listening, grieving, lamenting, describe so well the basics of making space for godly power to work among us to heal, redeem, restore (ch. 8). She describes compellingly the ways in which Jesus’s use of power is starkly different from worldly power. A bit like Crouch, she calls for a different way of exercising power: the way of Jesus. But, nonetheless, the “power over” is kept in place (see pp.178-179 for a sharp example). She fails to distinguish between the two powers.

And so I fear that following Langberg keeps us under the allure of worldly power, believing we can be the ones to “redeem (worldly) power” for God. It is, I fear, a recipe for the abuse Langberg works so hard to rid us of. Instead I propose we start with the distinguishing of the two powers, recognizing our call to live under God’s power, discern His power and participate in His work. There will be times when worldly power over must be used, but it must always be limited in its scope, and kept within guard rails. Otherwise it will take over and marginalize any space for God to work in our lives, our churches, and our neighborhoods.

………

I realize this riff on Langberg begs a few questions. It is in part a selection from ch. 5 of Reckoning with Power and depends on the back chapters of the book. Nonetheless I hope it starts conversations in your churches, around tables, and among leaders. You can download a discussion guide of Reckoning With Power AT THIS POST, as well as a discount offer on the book. And Diane!! if you’re interested, please drop me a line HERE, and we’d love to have you on the Theology On Mission podcast (found HERE) sometime soon to discuss these issues and more!!!