Luke 22:25-26

We are living in political times. What I mean by that is that everything that seems to occur is based on calculation, triangulation, and cloak and dagger diplomacy. To say that these methods of operation are confined to the secular world is incorrect. One need only to review the history of the European church to see the game of chess being played by different factions contending for control. To say that such methods are either in the past or only confined to the Roman Catholic Church is also incorrect. For the past forty years the SBC has been at war with itself and the current methods employed at pursuing, capturing, and consolidating power have been used by many people. To read Roman Catholic history is to see explicit parallels to our current predicament.

The love of power is something that I have never really understood. I remember taking a Sociology course in college taught by a Marxist professor. The class was, of course, taught through a Marxist lens but was very informative about the attitudes and goals of the left-wing. Furthermore, I took part in a interdisciplinary program in college that was taught by Marxists, former hippies and beatniks, and many other types who were so far left that it would make most conservative Christians sob into their pillows each night. In other words, they were good people! One of the many things I learned from these lefties and the students who soon will replace the Boomer generation in leftist circles was that they were consumed by the topic of power. The idea that anyone had power over them was a hateful idea to them. And everything did in their minds. The Church, corporations, Republicans, men, whites, cliche, cliche, cliche, all had power over them or so they believed. For four years I would ask them what power Walmart had over them but they never did give me a straight answer. Now I am a very independent person by nature and I too dislike people having power over me. In that since, I understood the desire of leftists to be free, but I didn't believe that big business or religion had any power over me. At that time in my life, I was concerned that government had too much power.

There was another significant difference between the leftists and myself. While I readily admit that I do not want people with power over me, I also do not want power over others. I have always been so fiercely independent (sometimes to a fault) that I would never want to control others. The leftists were different; they did not want people with power over them but they did want power over others. Now it may be that they felt that the only way for them to be free was to control those who might encroach on their freedom; that is a possibility. Nevertheless, I never understood this seeming contradiction. Why would one want to control others?

Now this is not a phenomenon exlcusive to the left. Many on the right have fallen into this trap. In fact, many on the more conservative side of Christianity have fallen into the trap of consuming power in order to maintain what they preceive as true religion. This is not unknown to Christianity; again, look at the history of the Roman Catholic church.

In short, I think that many of the leaders of our convention have become consumed with the acquisition and consolidation of power. While they decry the growing federal government they employ in their own fishbowls the same tactics that make them depise liberals. I believe, this has been a demonic trap that our leaders and many of us have fallen into in recent decades, including myself.


We must maintain the teachings of Jesus and Paul, nicely summed up in Luke 22:25-26, "The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that."
In terms of the Church, Christians are not to have power and authority over other Christians.

In the coming weeks I hope to speak upon the number of errors I believe have penetrated into Baptist life and must be dealt with if the SBC is to fulfill its mission for the Kingdom. But to deal with power one must understand power. The following books are those which most directly teach the fundamentals of power in terms of its acquisition and consolidation.

Art of War, by Sun Tzu

The Godfather, by Mario Puza

The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli

Mein Kampf, by Adolph Hitler

Power Plays, by Dick Morris

The History of the Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides

Shogun, by James Clavell

A History of the English Speaking Peoples, by Winston S. Churchill

Servant Songs, by W. Randall Lolley