{"id":10837,"date":"2016-08-22T07:55:42","date_gmt":"2016-08-22T11:55:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/?p=10837"},"modified":"2016-08-22T09:16:08","modified_gmt":"2016-08-22T13:16:08","slug":"monday-morning-moment-a-look-at-power-with-andy-crouch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/?p=10837","title":{"rendered":"Monday Morning Moment – A Look at Power with Andy Crouch"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u00a0\"Blog<\/a><\/div>\n
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Just recently I heard a friend quote from the book Playing God – Redeeming the Gift of Power<\/em><\/a> by Andy Crouch. It struck me as odd that he was reading such a book because, although he is a powerful man in his own circle, he doesn’t seem vulnerable to such a phenomenon. Wisdom is to mark such a supposition and guard against it. This friend does that. My husband has also been reading Crouch’s book, so I am persuaded to add it to my list of reads.<\/div>\n
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Here’s a taste of what you’ll find thanks to Good Reads<\/a>. It is often where I start with a book given my long list of wanna-reads. Andy Crouch<\/a> makes a strong case for our need to wrestle with our temptation to “play God” in our relationships, institutions, and culture. See for yourself….<\/div>\n
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On Power in Creating Good or Evil – in Work and Culture<\/strong><\/div>\n
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\u201cIt is a source of refreshment, laughter, joy and life\u2014and of more power. Remove power and you cut off life, the possibility of creating something new and better in this rich and recalcitrant world. Life is power. Power is life. And flourishing power leads to flourishing life. Of course, like life itself, power is nothing\u2014worse than nothing\u2014without love.<\/strong> But love without power is less than it was meant to be.<\/strong> Love without the capacity to make something of the world, without the ability to respond to and make room for the beloved\u2019s flourishing, is frustrated love. This is why the love that is the heartbeat of the Christian story\u2014the Father\u2019s love for the Son and, through the Son, for the world\u2014is not simply a sentimental feeling or a distant, ethereal theological truth, but has been signed and sealed by the most audacious act of true power in the history of the world, the resurrection of the Son from the dead. Power at its best is resurrection to full life, to full humanity. Whenever human beings become what they were meant to be, when even death cannot finally hold its prisoners, then we can truly speak of power.\u201d<\/strong><\/div>\n
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\u201cPower at its worst is the unmaker of humanity\u2014breeding inhumanity in the hearts of those who wield power, denying and denouncing the humanity of the ones who suffer under power<\/strong>…This power ultimately will put everything around it to death rather than share abundant life with another. It is also the power of feigned or forced ignorance, the power of complacency and self-satisfaction with our small fiefdoms of comfort. Power, the truest servant of love, can also be its most implacable enemy.\u201d<\/div>\n
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\u201cOver and over in the Gospels, Jesus interrupts his agenda for those who have nothing to offer him but need everything from him.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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On Power and Information<\/strong><\/div>\n
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\u201cI am also practicing cello to wean myself from power and accomplishment, to place myself back in the posture of a learner, cultivator, and creator. To become a bit like a child.<\/strong> To detoxify from the too-ready recognition and privilege that accompany even the most modest forms of success, to become available again for something surprising and new. Just as children flourish by growing into adults, so adults flourish by cultivating childlikeness, avoiding the spiritual hardening of the arteries that comes with competence and experience<\/strong>.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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On Poverty and Privilege<\/strong><\/div>\n
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\u201cHow many times have I been put at the front of the line without even knowing there was a line?<\/strong> How many times have I walked through a door that opened, invisibly and silently, for me, but slammed shut for others? How many lines have I cut in a life of privilege?\u201d<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cPoverty is the absence of linkages, the absence of connections with others<\/strong>…\u201d<\/div>\n
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\u201cBenevolent god playing happens when we use the needs of the poor to make our own move from good to great\u2014to revel in the superior power of our technology and the moral excellence of our willingness to help. Benevolent god playing makes us, not those we are serving, the heroes of the story<\/strong>. It happens whenever technological and financial resources are deployed in such overwhelming force, and with so little real trust building or relationship, that we maintain a safe distance between ourselves and the recipients of our largesse.\u201d<\/div>\n
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\u201cThe poor are poor,\u201d Jayakumar said to me, \u201cbecause someone else is trying to play God in their lives.\u201d<\/strong><\/div>\n
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On Idolatry and Injustice<\/strong><\/div>\n
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\u201cAll idols begin by offering great things for a very small price. All idols then fail, more and more consistently, to deliver on their original promises, while ratcheting up their demands, which initially seemed so reasonable, for worship and sacrifice.<\/strong> In the end they fail completely, even as they make categorical demands. In the memorable phrase of the psychiatrist Jeffrey Satinover, idols ask for more and more, while giving less and less, until eventually they demand everything and give nothing.\u201d<\/div>\n
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\u201cGod hates injustice and idolatry because they are the same thing.\u201d<\/strong><\/div>\n
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Crouch’s book just got moved to the top of my reading list. Have a great Monday! Let’s exercise our power wisely today…<\/div>\n
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An Interview with Andy Crouch About the Idol and Gift of Power<\/em> – Justin Taylor<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Just recently I heard a friend quote from the book Playing God – Redeeming the Gift of Power by Andy Crouch. It struck me as odd that he was reading such a book because, although he is a powerful man in his own circle, he doesn’t seem vulnerable to such a phenomenon. Wisdom is … Continue reading Monday Morning Moment – A Look at Power with Andy Crouch<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1264,371,34,1628,799,1705,1148,33,18,1732,317,1450,353,761,1453,2821],"tags":[3619,1836,3401,1366,3621,1835,3622,3620,10,1314],"class_list":["post-10837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-addictions","category-bookmarked-summer","category-books","category-character","category-church-2","category-conversations","category-critical-thinking","category-inspired","category-jesus","category-leadership","category-lessons-learned","category-monday-morning","category-monday-morning-moment","category-redeeming-restoring","category-work","category-work-culture","tag-andy-crouch","tag-god","tag-idolatry","tag-idols","tag-injustice","tag-jesus","tag-justin-taylor","tag-playing-god","tag-poverty","tag-power"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pauPAB-2ON","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10837"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10851,"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10837\/revisions\/10851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}