Power With: Faith, Responsibility, and the Way of Jesus

In this episode of Faith in Process, Pastor Harry Jarrett sits down with Millard Driver for a freeform conversation about power, responsibility, and the image of God. The conversation begins with the story behind the podcast itself: a friendship formed through lunch conversations, honest questions, and what Millard calls the gift of having a “soul friend.” From there, Harry and Millard explore what power is, whether it is neutral, and how every person carries some measure of power, whether they recognize it or not.Together with the Sunday school class at Pleasant Valley Church of the Brethren, they wrestle with the difference between power over and power with. Is power over always harmful, or can it serve the common good? How do we know when power becomes coercive, self serving, or abusive? What does it mean to use power in ways that are persuasive, loving, creative, and faithful to the way of Jesus?The conversation moves through examples from government, parenting, teaching, addiction recovery, incarceration, abuse, forgiveness, and even Spider Man and Cocaine Bear. Along the way, the episode keeps returning to a deeply Christian question: if we are created in the image of God, how are we called to use the power we have?Run of Show00:00:08 Welcome to Faith in Process00:00:35 How the podcast began through conversations with Millard00:03:21 Introducing the topic: power00:03:45 Soul friends, Celtic Christianity, and the gift of honest conversation00:05:09 Lonnie Yoder’s earlier comments on power00:06:19 Defining power as capacity, ability, authority, influence, and control00:08:15 Government, democracy, and power for the common good00:09:32 Power over, power with, and who gets the final word00:12:23 Millard connects the topic of power to his image of God00:13:26 Created in the image of God and created with intrinsic power00:15:03 Old Testament images of God, Jesus, and the God revealed in persuasive love00:17:44 Class discussion begins00:18:00 Parenting as an example of power used for good or harm00:18:38 Asking whether power serves the good of the other00:20:49 Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs, contemplation, and the true self00:23:03 Lonnie Yoder’s classroom example: the professor as the most powerful person in the room00:24:21 Spider Man and “with great power comes great responsibility”00:24:29 Everyone has power, whether they realize it or not00:25:01 Richard Rohr, prison, freedom, and agency00:26:39 Corrie ten Boom, Desmond Tutu, Jesus, and forgiveness as a form of power00:27:27 Alcoholics Anonymous and the power of example00:28:33 Why recognizing our power creates responsibility00:29:01 Cocaine Bear as an image of unrecognized, destructive power00:31:10 Abuse of power in academic settings00:32:45 Helping people recognize they are not powerless00:34:54 Safe community, shame, fear, and the courage to bring harm to light00:35:31 Closing the conversation00:36:10 Outro: continuing the conversation about power dynamicsResource GuideRichard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative PrayerHarry mentions listening to Richard Rohr’s Everything Belongs while reflecting on contemplation, the true self, and our tendency to manipulate other people or the world around us. The Center for Action and Contemplation describes the book as one of Rohr’s best known works on contemplative prayer and seeing through God.Anam Cara and the Celtic idea of the “soul friend”Millard refers to a Celtic Christian idea that everyone should have at least one “soul friend.” The Irish phrase often associated with this idea is anam cara, meaning soul friend. This as a kind of spiritual friendship where honest conversation, disagreement, prayer, and companionship can deepen faith.Spider Man and “with great power comes great responsibility”The class jokes that all good theology comes from Marvel comics after someone quotes the famous Spider Man line. The phrase is closely associated with Uncle Ben and has even been cited by Justice Elena Kagan in a 2015 Supreme Court opinion involving Marvel.Corrie ten Boom and forgivenessA class participant names Corrie ten Boom as an example of forgiveness in the face of great harm. Ten Boom, a Dutch Christian who helped Jews escape the Nazis and later survived Ravensbrück concentration camp, became widely known for her witness to forgiveness and reconciliation.Desmond Tutu and restorative justiceDesmond Tutu is mentioned as another example of forgiveness and power. Tutu chaired South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a process that sought to confront apartheid’s harms through truth telling, accountability, and the possibility of reconciliation.Clean Air Act and Clean Water ActMillard uses environmental law as an example of public power used for the common good. The EPA notes that the basic structure of the Clean Air Act was established in 1970, with major revisions in 1977 and 1990, while the Clean Water Act took shape through major 1972 amendments to earlier federal water pollution law.Cocaine BearHarry uses Cocaine Bear as a humorous image of unrecognized and destructive power. The real story involved a black bear that died in Georgia in 1985 after ingesting cocaine connected to drug smuggling. The later movie takes significant creative liberties with that event. Get full access to Harry Jarrett at pastorharryjarrett.substack.com/subscribe