It would be a wonderful thing if, this weekend, every preacher/speaker/leader of a worshiping community addressed this comment. It was uttered by Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff for President Donald Trump, in response to questions from CNN anchor Jake Tapper about the United States’s designs on Greenland.
It is possible to understand Miller’s contention as actually true. If, as I learned in school, power is “the ability to get things done,” then it seems self-evident that greater strength, force, and power will eventually win out over lesser manifestations of the same, if that greater power is able to sustain itself indefinitely.
But I suspect, given the context and the behavior of this administration, Miller was talking about little more than economic and military power, the only power our country now seems to understand and is willing to wield.
The reason I’d like to hear religious leaders speak to this statement is that it is a good springboard for considering the kinds of power most faiths espouse: the power of law, of love, of justice, of righteousness, of…yes…God. Is power an end or a thing in itself, answerable only to its own will?
I believe that the power of God to destroy is constrained by the power of God to love. God could wipe us all out, but doesn’t because God loves us. The creator God’s annihilating power is both seen in and kept in check by God’s love.
Law is an important component of many faith traditions. Law allows us to live together in ordered societies by placing guardrails around our individual and group behaviors. What and where those guardrails are can be endlessly debated, but rare is the religion that does not include expectations of behavior consistent with its beliefs.
Power alone does not define correct behavior. I am quite sure that that truth is not much emphasized in the rush to train I.C.E and the other militaristic enforcers of this administration’s policies. And just because we have the power to spirit away the leader of another country does not mean that we have done right. Nor do guns give cops or criminals the right to kill.
The ultimate test of power is what it wants to get done, and how.
You do not have to be religious to challenge Mr. Miller’s statement. But you should, it seems to be, have some sense of social responsibility and contract. The framers of our constitution believed that giving unrestrained power to any one person, or collection of persons, was dangerous. Unconstrained power, even in what seem to be “right” hands, can easily become authoritarian dominance over persons or groups not in its favor.
If the United States can “take” Greenland simply because it has the military and economic power to do so, then the world is at the mercy of armies and wealth. “Dog eat dog” guides our living, and before long only the biggest dogs will be left. They will, of course, then turn on each other, until only one dog is left…to die, because there’s nothing more to be consumed.
For Christians who are mindful of the church calendar and who use the lectionary, the January 11 readings can be powerful counter texts to Mr. Miller’s view of reality. Justice and righteousness play significant roles in them all. They force us to acknowledge that the power followers of Jesus are to pray and work for is the power to create just societies built upon right relationships among all constituents. Only such societies can rightly claim to be “great.”
For good reason, Christians unceasingly pray to God, “your kingdom come, your will be done” and “yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.”
