Power, Authority, and Love

Power differs from authority. According to the late Christian sociologist Tony Campolo, power is the coercive ability to control what happens, even against the will of others. Authority, however, is “established when someone is able to elicit compliance because others want to obey” (Choose Love Not Power: How to Right the World’s Wrongs from a Place of Weakness, 2009). Sacrificial love is what earns authority. This is a classic sociological formulation, though not how we normally use the word “authority.”

In a past editorial, I distinguished between power-over and power-with (Power-With, January 2017). Campolo’s distinction between power and authority maps well onto that power-over vs. power-with framework. Power-over is coercive, controlling, and manipulative. Power-with is collaborative and, in Campolo’s terms, authoritative. It elicits or invites obedience rather than forcing or threatening obedience. Sacrificial love for others is how one earns and exercises power-with.

For example, a frail old mother might not have much physical power to coerce her grown son to obey her wishes. Nonetheless, she has huge authority over him because he recognizes her years of sacrificial love for him. He does not obey out of fear. He wants to obey her because of her love for him.

Campolo warns the church that it has too often confused power with authority or, in my terms, confusing power-over with power-with. Jesus rejected Satan’s temptations to use power to save the world (Matt. 4:1-11). Instead, he exercised sacrificial love, even to death on a cross, to save us. But the church often uses power-over—whether economic, political, or religious—to achieve kingdom goals. The so-called Christian Left, for example, might use political power to try to eradicate poverty and racism. The so-called Christian Right might use political power to try to end abortion and promote family values. Either way, we might have unwittingly given in to the demonic temptation of using power-over to fulfill God’s mission. The “how” matters.

For Campolo, “the world is saved through (sacrificial) love, and power (or power-over) is used only to restrain what love cannot redeem.” Governments, for example, have power to restrain evil and injustice (Rom. 13:1-5). But even the most righteous governments will not save the world or bring forth God’s kingdom. It is always and only through Christ’s sacrificial love, exercising power-with, that God’s kingdom becomes reality.

Our confusion and sinful tendency to prefer using power-over extends also to religious power plays in the church, from the local level to the denominational. These power plays can take various forms, from harsh criticism and gossip to rigid rules and wrong use of discipline.

The 17th-century Anglican poet-priest George Herbert coined the proverb “Love rules his kingdom without a sword.” Genuine love exercises authority without coercive weapons. Power-over weaponizes even truth to control others, while power-with uses truth to serve others. Transformation does not happen via outward coercion and conformity through various power plays. Genuine transformation only happens from the inside out when the Holy Spirit works through sacrificial love to elicit obedience and change. This is a form of power-with; it invites willing obedience rather than imposing compliance. It allows itself to be vulnerable, to be rejected even as Christ was rejected.

Is this not how God relates to us and to God’s world? Does not God rule us through power-with rather than power-over? Let us follow God and Christ’s example in our dealings with the world and with each other.