Categories: musings
Date: 19 September 2007 16:34:27
Listening to The World at One today, heard an interview with Ming Campbell (leader of Liberal Democrats party, for non-UK folk) in which he said the Lib Dems were willing to work with other parties. 'Well, duh!' I exclaimed at the radio, 'Of course they are, that's the only way they'll get any power!'
This has set me to think on power, about what it is, how we wield it, the good and the harm it can do. I'm not the first to distinguish two types of power; shall we call them authority and ability? I have the authority to get my son off his computer, but I currently don't seem to have the ability. Contrariwise, as Tweedledum and Tweedledee said, I have the ability to preach a sermon telling the congregation exactly how they ought to live, but as I am merely a fellow believer, I don't necessarily have the authority to do that.
I worry a lot when I hear Christians, especially the evangelical sort, talking about preaching with power, the power of prayer, power healing. How does that differ from the macho power stance of Robocop or The Terminator? Not as much as it should, I fear. (And while we're on that topic, what are we to make of the actor who played both of those roles now having political power? Does he understand his role in politics any differently from how he understood those roles? I have a very well founded suspicion of Austrians with radical political programmes...)
Jesus didn't actually talk very much about power as a positive value, though he did promise 'power from on high'. Generally, he was pretty negative about the world's hierarchical systems: 'the Gentiles lord it over one another'. That's why, like Goering with culture, when I hear the word power I feel an instinctive urge to reach for my gun. Or would, if I weren't a pacifist, so I reach for my Anabaptist servant theology instead.
This has been very relevant lately in dealing with my son's school where the governors, in collusion with the head they appointed, seem determined to drive certain measures through regardless of how much opposition there is among the staff, parents and pupils. Measures that are potentially detrimental to the most vulnerable children in the school, those with special needs. I have been asking to whom the governors are accountable, who could sack them? And the answer seems to be no one, except in the case of major financial irregularity, which is almost impossible to prove. It's clear democracy in UK society doesn't extend very far at all. Shouldn't we Christians be modelling a better way in our churches? Yet we still call for 'strong leadership'; it's so much easier and safer to be told what to do.