Christian Power

Justin Taylor posted an interesting and beautiful interview
with Andy Crouch, author of Playing God,
Redeeming the Gift of Power, wherein Crouch discusses the nature of
Christian power:

[Henry Ossawa] Tanner’s painting [“The
Banjo Lesson,” 1893] is an amazing portrait of true power, in the context
of a music lesson…. Tanner was not only the first African-American painter of
international renown but arguably the last American painter of that stature to
be a serious and devout Christian.

What really got me thinking about
Tanner’s painting is the two levels on which it operates. At one level, it is
simply a portrait of the exchange of power that happens in all musical
instruction (and instruction more generally), where the student acquires
power without the teacher giving up any of their own power. Teaching
is a paradigmatic example of how power can multiply and lead to flourishing
without anyone being diminished or dominated. The teacher has real,
asymmetrical power, capacity, and authority—something we too easily
automatically associate with domination—but that authority is all devoted to
the flourishing of the student. And yet the teacher also flourishes in that
relationship, precisely by exercising power. Tanner captures the intimacy,
trust, love, and patience involved in the true use of power for flourishing—and
by including a jug and loaf on the golden-lit table in the background, suggests
that what is happening here is not just mundane culture but a foretaste of
glory.

At another level, Tanner was operating
within a profoundly broken system of power… By painting a banjo lesson, Tanner
was taking this visual symbol of the exploitation of his own culture and
rescuing it from caricature and diminishment. He infuses this humble musical
instrument and art form with all the artistry of the salons of Paris and all
the dignity of “classical” instruments (like, say, the cello). I see this
painting as a kind of restoration of image-bearing possibility—it restored
dignity, agency, and beauty to a culture and a people who had been robbed of
them….

[Tanner] was not a
genre painter. But when he turned to this subject, he brought all his skill and
power to restoring others’ image-bearing capacity. That is true power.

Christianity changed the West’s understanding of power. Our
culture is saturated with its ideas today, so it’s easy to forget how radical
this was:

Christ Jesus,…although He existed
in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but
emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the
likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by
becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason
also, God highly exalted him (Philippians 2:5-9).

Jesus, who had ultimate power, humbled Himself to the point
of death for the sake of others. This is the life He called us to when He said:

You know that the rulers of the
Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them.
It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you
shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your
slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to
give His life a ransom for many (Matthew 20:25-28).

Certainly there have been those in the West who have abused
power, but when you look at what is admired
in this culture, you’ll find that it’s this vision of Jesus as the
self-sacrificing servant that is held in high regard. We take this for granted,
but it has never been a universally-held ideal. “The word of the cross is foolishness”
to those who haven’t been shaped by the Christian story.

Nietzsche is one example of someone who explicitly rejected the
Christian view of power in favor of a “zero-sum conception of power as
domination,” as Crouch mentions in the interview.
But even those who aren’t atheists have difficulties with the cross. Muslims,
for example, reject the idea that Jesus died on the cross for the very reason
that their concept
of God’s power doesn’t allow for a prophet to suffer this kind of humiliation.
They find our vision of a divine Jesus on the cross incomprehensible.

Ideas shape individuals and cultures, teaching
them what they should love and pursue. May you become as steeped
in the Christian story as Henry Ossawa Tanner was so that everything coming out of
you takes on the shape of truth, beauty, and human dignity.

Read the rest of the interview.