Power – 3

It’s February, and we’ve turned to the Bible’s 6th “Big Idea”–one that’s sure to put a jolt in your winter blues: POWER. What does the Bible say about power? What is power? What is it for? Who has it? Who should have it? What power does God have and how does God use it? Power is one of the most complex subjects in the Holy Scriptures, primarily because so much of what it teaches about power seems contradictory: Is God an all-powerful Creator, or a God who “empties himself” of power to assume flesh and die in humiliation and weakness? Each Sunday in February, we explore power from a different angle.

• On Feb. 2nd, we looked at our charged world, full of good and evil powers, with the help of theologian Walter Wink. 
• On Feb. 9th, we explored the confounding idea that God’s strength is known in weakness. 
• On Feb. 16th, we interrogate the myth of “redemptive violence” and learn the theology of non-violent power with Ministry Fellow Rob Schoonover preaching.

From Rob Schoonover – The Myth of Redemptive Violence:  Media, American Mythology, and interpretations of the Bible all contain a form of Redemptive Violence. Imperial culture’s perpetuate redemptive violence myths as a way of maintaining power within their contexts. Western Christianity has not been immune to this phenomenon. This Sunday we will examine why we’ve continued to tell Redemptive Violence Myths and we will see how the person of Christ critiques and challenges the redemptive violence narratives that pervade our cultural imagination