When You Rule the Mountain, the Mountain Rules You (Seven Mountain Mandate)
I am writing a book with the tentative title “Paradoxical Christians Mission: Theology Reflections for Weak, Small, Poor, and Slow Ministry.” In case it wasn’t clear in the title, I am suggesting that Weak, Small, Poor, and Slow are GOOD qualities in ministry.
As I have been writing I feel myself bumping up against the Seven Mountain Mandate. Truthfully, it is not a term big in my particular faith tradition, but the concept is. It is a “dominionist” view that Christians are meant to dominate the seven “mountains” of society— religion, family, education, governance, media, art, entertainment. Apparently, this view has its roots in CCC (now CRU) and YWAM.
Now, I am kind of a “Both/And” person. I usually find truth in the nuance. As such, I don’t necessarily see some ideas as completely correct or completely wrong. BUUUUUUT… I really struggle to see any good in this. Perhaps, if I try hard, I might say something somewhat positive like,
“Christians, both as a group and as individuals, should have impact in our world and in our society. This impact should not be simply in terms of religion— kept in a sterile box separated from all other parts of our culture. Our faith should affect our entire lives, and as we interact with the world around us, this holistic nature of our faith should stand in contrast to our world, and provide an alternative perspective that affects our world holistically.”
But this does not seem to be what is being talked about when people talk about the Seven Mountains. What is being talked about is POWER. It is about subduing, overtaking, controlling.
The problem is that this doesn’t seem to jibe with the message of Christ. Some argue that early Christianity was a novel idea of an oppressed powerless group… but over time as its power increases, our goals should be less countercultural and be more culture-overthrowing. It kind of makes sense, but I do think that there are problems with this, and the main problem is in the title of this post.
When you rule a mountain, the mountain rules you. I think we are seeing this today in American-style Evangelicalism. Now, despite having lived in the Philippines for much of the last 20+ years, I am definitely American. I have for 2 or 3 decades called myself an Evangelical Christian. But the “American-style Evangelicalism” of recent years seems to have really taken on a focus on power and control. We see this in the area of governance, where the focus seems to be on controlling others. The emphasis on impacting media and entertainment also seems to have an idealized endgame of control of the flow of ideas and images. Power is addictive, and addiction is really not good for the church.
John Maxwell speaks of the levels of influence. I like his work in this. The lowest level of influence is Position. (Above this are Permission, Performance, People-development, and Personhood (or Pinnacle).) It is interesting, however, that coercion, the ability of power to express itself in terms of control, is tied to the lowest level of influence (position). Yet, as Maxwell shows, a person with a higher level of influence has greater power when he or she has greater influence.
This suggests that there is more than one type of power. One type of power (coercion) goes down as influence goes up. The other type of power goes up as influence goes up. Since I struggle to find a good label for this type of power, I may as well simply go with the term “influence.”
Christians should have influence in the 7 big areas of society. (I am in now way saying these 7 areas are the most important… just the 7 areas that are popularized.) However, when one is speaking of power as it relates to control/coercion, that is very different. The excitement of the ability to influence, however, can lead to the excitement of controlling others. That desire can also lead to yielding to other types of base desires.
There are stories of Christian leaders who have fallen (morally) and that leads to the inevitable question of whether the person was ever “good.” I would suggest that in many cases the person was probably good but gave in to the seductive quality of power.
When we “rule” religion, our base instincts drive our decisions. Spiritual abuse can often be the worst abuse because it has a justification of seeming divine mandate. When we “rule” governance, our desire to control others feels easy and appropriate to satisfy. When we “rule” media, our power to gatekeep ends up pushing us to justify book burnings, book bannings and more.
Influence the mountains but don’t try to rule them. Leave that “Pandora’s Box” to others
