Jesus and The Power Team
If you’re an American of a certain age raised in a charismatic/pentecostal tradition, you will remember the Power Team: A half-dozen or so bulked up men who would hold assemblies at churches and schools, displaying feats of strength and attributing them to God.
I think the reasoning went something like this: If these guys can rip a phone book in half or punch through a stack of boards with their bare hands, then God can surely give you the strength to do through force what is necessary in or around your life, too.
Jesus and the Powers by N.T. Wright and Michael F. Bird has nothing to do with the Power Team, yet oddly I find a connection.
More about that, in a bit.
In this book Wright and Bird tackle the age-old struggle concerning the relationship between Christians and Political empire. That’s a simplistic summary, but I think it’s a good kicking off point. We Christians in America need badly to understand and address this relationship, because we happen to live in a season where the struggle is real, and present.
But how do we deal with this? Should Christians seek to control politics, or influence it, or serve it, or ignore it? Everyone from Christian Nationalists to 7 Mountain Dominionists to Anabaptist separatists to Catholic social thinkers (and many more) seem to have an answer.
In other words what is the best way to approach our “Christian political witness in an age of totalitarian terror and dysfunctional democracies”? (The book’s subtitle)
The answer to this question, and a Biblical rationale behind the answer, is essential to pursue.
Wright and Bird engage the question by pointing out historical connections between church and empire and both some positive and negative results of that connection. They also exegete Biblical texts about the powers, briefly unpack a theology of the Kingdom of God, and extoll the virtue of liberal democracy and confident pluralism.
And the refrain they keep returning to throughout the book is that we are called not to build the Kingdom but to build for the Kingdom. Building for the Kingdom is the activity of Christians who are partnering with God’s redemptive work in the world and who are preparing people for the consummation of the Kingdom. By contrast, God is the only one who can rightfully build His Kingdom, and as George Eldon Ladd and John Bright suggest, that Kingdom is already inaugurated but not yet consumated, and will not be until Jesus comes back.
Thinking we are building God’s Kingdom by our own actions, or worse yet are in charge of forcing Kingdom rule as representatives of Christ, has historically led to disastrous outcomes.
This is a long quote, but I think it gets at the point of what can happen when we mix up the church with the Kingdom of God and believe we are responsible for building it:
“Christendom did not make the world the kingdom of heaven. Often it was the opposite: it manufactured a merciless hell for many on the margins. Bishops and princes got rich and fat off the suffering of others. This is the tension we must wrestle with in church history and in the story of Western civilization. Christendom, for all the cultivation of Christian virtues, for all the claim of the Spirit’s effervescent presence, for all the advances in human liberties from the Magna Carta to the Bill of Rights, was still tainted with the human capacity for evil. It is indubitably true that Christian civilization was often neither Christian nor civil. At times, it seemed as if the kingdom of heaven was still very much in heaven and not on earth.” (31)
Those who want to build the kingdom by winning elections and culture wars are at the very least on a slippery slope to the kind of empire building and human controlled theocracy that has historically done significant harm to the cause of Christ.
But it seems that many Christians, in the United States at least, aren’t getting that message. Here there is often a sense that the more strength, the more victory. “Might Makes Right” may not have been the message that the Power Team was trying to communicate in the 90’s, but in some sectors of US Christianity if you can “win the argument/pass the law/elect the leader/force your perspective” then clearly God is on your side and He is against those you think are suspect and will help you tear apart their arguments like overly thick phone book.
But this misses something important about the way of the cross, victory through suffering, the power of the persecuted church, Jesus model of servanthood, and his admonition that those who lead don’t “lord it over” but “come under”.
Maybe we would do well to remember that “God’s power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Maybe we would do well to remember that we don’t build the Kingdom but we live it out as we influence others, through servanthood, to invite God’s rule and reign in their lives.
About the Author
Tim Clark
I'm on a lifelong journey of discovering the person God has created me to be and aligning that with the purpose God has created me for. I've been pressing hard after Jesus for 40 years, and I currently serve Him as the lead pastor of vision and voice at The Church On The Way in Los Angeles. I live with my wife and 3 kids in Burbank California.12 responses to “Jesus and The Power Team”
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I remember the Power Team.
Cathy, this may be my favorite comment in the wole program so far! 🙂
Tim, your post sent me on a half-hour YouTube dive into Power Team videos—so many memories! Your connection between the Power Team’s feats of strength and the misguided “might makes right” mentality in some sectors of Christianity is spot on. The reminder that we are to build for the Kingdom, not by force, but through service and humility, is so timely. Thanks for shedding light on this important aspect of Christian political witness.
via GIPHY
Mathieu, You don’t strike me as a Power Team kinda guy. You keep surprising me.
That’s what I saw, too, was the ‘might makes right’ subtext to this group. I can’t imagine it was intentional, but I think it supported a ‘powers’ mentality vs. a servanthood one.
Looking forward to connecting in DC
Tim, you bring up some questions that I would guess many (most?) Christians in the U.S. have probably not wrestled with — “Should Christians seek to control politics, or influence it, or serve it, or ignore it? Everyone from Christian Nationalists to 7 Mountain Dominionists to Anabaptist separatists to Catholic social thinkers (and many more) seem to have an answer.”
I do think several authors, some we’ve read in this course and some we haven’t, do provide spectacles to tackle the categories you listed. Some are more helpful than others. Two immediately come to mind: James D. Hunter’s To Change the World (tackles all of those topics and may be on the “more helpful” side) and Matthew Petrusek’s Evangelization and Ideology (seems to have a “re-claiming the country back for God” tenor to it, in my opinion. His work may be “less helpful” though that is simply my opinion). I haven’t heard anyone mention the “7 mountains” paradigm for quite some time, but I do remember that sort of thinking that emerged maybe back in the 1990s (or earlier).
I do think we, as leaders in churches, need to make sure the people we serve have the training/equipping (formation) they need to reflect and act critically as “citizens of heaven” (Phil 3:20) as they/we flesh out our various callings — callings that include living God-glorifying lives as citizens of the U.S. (or Canada or wherever we are). I think this equipping or spiritual formation or disciplemaking (or whatever we need to call it) needs more attention.
I’m with you on the formation piece. This season I’m working overtime to try to provide an alternative narrative to the formation much of my congregation gets daily on CNN or Fox.
Intereting the 7 Mountain Mandate thing came up the other day in conversation with another church leader. I always approached that as positive: “there were 7 segments of culture that exist and believers should seek to serve in every sector to live out the presence of God.”
Apparently that has become “there are 7 segments of culture and christians shoudl seek to lead and dominate every segment so we can force our ways on society.”
It’s hard to keep up with how people twist something that started out good.
“Those who want to build the kingdom by winning elections and culture wars are at the very least on a slippery slope to the kind of empire building and human controlled theocracy that has historically done significant harm to the cause of Christ. But it seems that many Christians, in the United States at least, aren’t getting that message. But this misses something important about the way of the cross, victory through suffering, the power of the persecuted church, Jesus model of servanthood, and his admonition that those who lead don’t “lord it over” but “come under”. YAAAAASSSS and AMEN! Thank you Tim!
And, I think that we have a calling/responsibility to say what you just said, out loud, from the pulpit, online, wherever it is being challenged. That, at least, is what I also think they were saying in their book.
Agreed. And I’m working on saying it out loud, from the pulpit, especially in this season. I have PTSD from the last election cycle in 2020, but if I don’t speak truth where is the congregation I serve going to hear it?
Hi Tim,
Your blogpost was an enjoyable read. It swims up stream, if you will, from the other blogposts that seek to harmonize political theology with “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done.”
I hit 65 this weekend and have made some life changing decisions, 1) I will never drive a motorcycle and 2) I am not buying the 18 inch chainsaw that I have been coveting for a while. I decided I want to have my skin and limbs intact for age 66.
Back to your post…
Normally, I am thrilled by Christians shining their light in the world.
For instance, I have been an admirer and friend of Dr. Marc LiVecche executive editor of Providence Magazine. They write about themselves…Founded in 2015, Providence examines global statecraft with Christian Realism. We are inspired by Christianity & Crisis, the journal Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr founded in 1941 to argue for the moral and geopolitical imperative of American leadership against totalitarian aggression. We believe American Christians have a special duty to interpret America’s vocation in the world today. We seek to uplift the best of historic Christian political theology, to foster wider conversation about spirituality in politics, and to create a community of serious Christian public thinkers serving America and the world.
My years in the U.S. Army sought to be in a place where I could stand against tyranny. I accepted the concept of “Holy Violence” when needed.
HOWEVER
I wonder, however, if political theology has distracted me from my “Kingdom work.” This morning I read an article “The Year of Elections Has Been Good for Democracy But the Biggest Test Will Come in America By Francis Fukuyama
September 4, 2024, in Foreign Affairs.
Normally, I would avidly read every word, but today at 0700 I am speaking with a pastor in Kenya to vet a Soccer coach who wants to work with GoodSports International (www.goodsportsinternational.org).
When I compare these two events I rediscover that my Return to JOY (RARE Leadership) is really in Loving God, Loving Kids, when necessary use sports. (www.goodsportsinternational.org)
Sigh, I have had a major shift in my priorities since my return from Slovakia, Ukraine and Hungary.
The impact that I have on the presidential election is negligible. Despite Fukuyama’s argument that the rise of authoritarian leaders are forcing real democratic debate, I wonder if my energies could best be used elsewhere.
Loving God, Loving kids and using sports when necessary.
Shalom
I love it, Russ. You took this book and my blog and personalized it so well. Not getting distracted by what you ‘can’ do but what you ‘must’ be. Thanks for the reminder.
Fun Fact: the one and only time I saw The Power Team live in action was, wait for it, at The Church on the Way in Van Nuys, CA. If I recall, Frank Parrish was the youth pastors at the time.
Of course, I was a huge Power Team fan, and would follow their “ministry” in print and on TBN (pre-internet).
I may not be recalling correctly, so pardon the assertion…but I remember The Power Team being a blend of Jesus and U.S.A.
It was kinda my 1st exposure to Christian Nationalism, if I’m correct. Do you remember?
We were probably there togther cause that’s the only time I ever saw them live too.
Unlike you I never followed them. Even then I was doing a lot of eye rolling. 🙂
But yea, I get what you are saying. I think the seeds of what we know today as Christian Nationalism were being planted all over the place in the 80s, and we had no idea.
Interesting to follow the reaping back to the sowing, isn’t it?