In a sermon, I recently said to my congregation something like, “Our culture uses the identities of socioeconomic status, race, gender, or even age and levies them as power over others. But as disciples of Christ, our identity is expressed through the laying down of power.” In fact, a similar statement can be found in some of our governing documents that try to give a theological vision to our church community. It’s part and parcel of the language and culture that we’ve tried to create at our church. To follow Christ means to identify with the lowly and excluded. And the only way to do that is to find our fundamental identity in Christ, who put on human frailty, and his cross.
But I could feel Andy Crouch take a surgical knife to that statement as I read his new Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power. I could hear him listening to my sermon and saying, “Yes and no. Yes, identify with the lowly and don’t use your identities as power over others. But let’s think some more about ‘power.’”
Rethinking Power
We evangelicals have done a poor job thinking about power. We’ve either assumed its presence without much reflection or we’ve demonized it wherever it may be found. Power, then, if not entirely evil in our minds, must be limited lest it cause great damage.
Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power
Andy Crouch
But Crouch, executive editor of Christianity Today, believes power is a gift and that we have power by way of the imago dei. (Hence the book’s title, Playing God.) We’re all playing god; it’s just a matter of which one: the God of the Bible or an idol. If we properly function as image bearers of the biblical God, then we will be powerful, though in a creaturely way. The power of being made in God’s image is what separates us as humans from other creatures. We have the unique ability to make sense of the world and then make something of it, Crouch says. That’s power.
Here we see that “power” in a creaturely (or biblical) sense causes human flourishing, since that was the original command that God gave Adam: Be fruitful and multiply, sharing in my dominion. Make something of the world!
Rarely does the world (even the church) speak about power in this way. Power, Crouch rightly argues, is often couched in zero-sum terms—a competition to take up limited space. But the power of an image bearer is not zero-sum but positive-sum. “Image power” is fruitful, and it multiplies. The simple example Crouch offers is the act of giving music lessons. His cello teacher, who has musical powers, didn’t become less powerful by giving Crouch cello lessons. In other words, for Crouch to become more musically powerful, his teacher didn’t need to become less powerful. In fact, it’s likely he became more powerful. Human power, as image bearers, is good power. It causes human flourishing and should be requested in prayer.
But when we image the idols of the world rather than the God of the Bible, we begin to use power in a way that isn’t fruitful and doesn’t multiply, but instead limits and oppresses. This problem shows itself in either god-making or god-playing. Both seek to eradicate God’s image in this world.
Like the serpent in the garden of Eden, Crouch observes, idols (god-making) promise you can be like God and can have life apart from God. Idols start by offering big and taking little, but end up taking more and offering nothing. Creaturely, image-bearing power causes human flourishing, but idols are the “unmaker of humanity.” Moreover, god-playing is an act of tyranny. Systemic poverty exists, as Crouch learned through his time with World Vision India, because “someone else is trying to play God in their lives.” We can even act as “benevolent gods,” he argues, who work for the sake of the poor but end up promising too much and playing “false saviors” who remedy obvious symptoms of injustice but leave the underlying disease untreated.
It’s also worth noting that Crouch offers an extended excursion on evangelism and social action that provides a healthy balance against the abuses of social action without evangelism, and evangelism without social action. Crouch has some wise counsel for thinking through how omitting either begins to look less and less like the biblical concept of shalom that is interwoven “in the story of the Creator God and his yearning for restored relationship with his people.”
Applying Power: The Institution
Crouch takes one more logical step in Playing God that I believe is where the conversation really gets interesting. He argues that if power is a gift, then institutions are a gift. That’s not exactly the toe-tapping tune our modern, individualistic society sings—even (or maybe especially) evangelicals.
Institutions, however, have been a topic of conversation of late. Tim Keller’s Center Church looks closely at movement dynamics in contrast to institution dynamics. Keller argues that movements have the characteristics of (1) a compelling vision, (2) a culture of sacrifice, (3) flexibility towards other organizations, and (4) a kind of spontaneity of ideas and new leaders. However, a movement won’t last if it doesn’t, at some level, institutionalize.
Comment Magazine did a whole issue recently on institutions, giving us reason after reason for why institutions matter. “If you’re really about the common good, then you should resist anti-institutionalism,” remarks James K. A. Smith in his editorial, “We Believe in Institutions.”
So Crouch, among others, joins the discussion on institutions, arguing that they “are the environment where image bearers flourish in all their astonishing variety.”
But I thought institutions frustrated creativity and cultivation. Isn’t that what we’re led to think? Crouch recognizes institutions can make that mistake. He also recognizes institutions can cultivate a culture of injustice and oppression. But institutions provide, he contends, roles (think “father” in the institution of the family), arenas (think “galleries” for art), and rules (think “regulations” for day traders on Wall Street) where image bearers can flourish as fathers, artists, and bankers. The power of institutions is to distribute power for comprehensive flourishing, not merely private thriving.
The most helpful and intriguing part of Crouch’s book is his formula for what makes institutions that leave behind cultural significance. They must have four ingredients (artifacts, arenas, rules, and goals) and three generations (e.g., Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob). This is a helpful guide as he then turns to churches and church leaders who have “poured their energies into creating forms of church life that serve just a single generation.” Crouch sees institutions as something of a remedy for churches and other organizations to flourish across space and time, to be a blessing to our children’s children.
I’m from a generation of young pastors who have a tendency to respond critically to other church movements that idolize church forms from bygone years. I think Crouch would affirm the light-footedness that doesn’t want to fall into nostalgia, but would rebuke the possibility of presentism that is doomed to seem dated to the founders’ children.
What’s popular among younger pastors is learning from churches whose influence and numbers have grown quickly around a single, dynamic personality. But Crouch’s advice would likely be to find and learn from churches and organizations who have stayed for generations and whose influence and significance have lasted through different leaders and changes. That, I suggest, would be a significant shift—and maybe something a bit more productive than bashing celebrity pastors.
Here’s one more takeaway for young pastors. The recent discussions on faith and work have increased, and I’m grateful for them. But there’s been a lack of theological acumen in sermons, blog posts, and (maybe) even books on the topic. The proof is in the fact that most don’t go past answering the question “Why does work matter?” Crouch, however, gives us clear theological parameters to think and reflect clearly as we pastor our congregants on ambition, wealth, status, and vocation.
If I had to rate this book out of five stars, that would assume there were at least five other books like it to compare, right? But there aren’t. So I’ll give Playing God a golden star and, now, let’s have five more. And those books will need to reckon with this one.
