Fall 2025 · Vol. 54 No. 2 · pp. 299–302
Book Review
Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies
Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2024. xviii + 185 pages.
Contemporary church and political life are characterized by disturbing narratives that involve the abuse of power. These include the sexual abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist churches, the alleged abuses by Mark Driscoll documented in Christianity Today’s “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill” podcast, the scapegoating of migrants, failure to provide due process, and assaults on both religious p. 300 freedom and free speech in the United States. It is a truism that contemporary culture is polarized. Two recent books on power offer theological reflection that should challenge Christians at any point on the political spectrum.
David Fitch, in Reckoning with Power, primarily (though not exclusively) addresses the understanding and application of power within the community of believers. In Jesus and the Powers, N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird help us think about the power relationships between the church and the nonbelieving culture(s) in which it finds itself. All three authors are academic theologians with extensive church experience. Fitch is B. R. Lindner Chair of Evangelical Theology at Northern Seminary; Wright is professor emeritus of New Testament at the University of St. Andrews and senior research fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University; Bird is deputy principal and lecturer in Theology at Ridley College, Melbourne, Australia.
The books have contrasting accounts of the nature of power. The primary claims of Fitch’s Reckoning with Power are that there are two kinds of power–worldly power and godly power; that Christians have frequently failed to carefully distinguish the two kinds of power but have instead blurred the distinction; and that blurring the distinction is a major cause of the abuse of power.
Fitch believes that distinguishing two kinds of power is what sets his approach apart from other discussions of power. Fitch says that the “standard account” of power is that power is an unavoidable feature of human existence, that power is in itself a morally neutral tool, and that the only relevant moral question is whether or not one is using power justly. Fitch, however, rejects the standard account and offers, instead, what we can call the “two kinds account.” He writes, “There is (1) worldly power, which works ‘over’ people via a position, a discourse of justification, or other kind of coercion, and (2) godly power, at work through the presence and power of Jesus by the Spirit among a group of people” (46). On Fitch’s understanding, worldly power—that is, power that is coercive or manipulative—has no place within the church, writing “I believe the church leader should lay down worldly power entirely, refusing to exercise it, and instead lead a people into a coming ‘under’ God’s power, a mutuality of submission to God and a participation with Him in God’s power at work among us” (45).
Wright and Bird, on the other hand, work within the “standard account” of power. That is, they make precisely the assumption that Fitch believes is the root of abuses of power. They assume that all power p. 301 is worldly power (that is, it is to some degree coercive) and the call to Christians is to use worldly power in the right way. They argue that
[God’s] kingdom is not one that arises from within the world. But as it advances, as it spreads, it dispels and displaces the dark forces in the world.
If Jesus’ kingdom is of such an order, not from this world but for this world, then keeping out of politics is impossible. We must be political in some sense because the kingdom of God has political implications for proclamation and poverty, for justice and judgement, for Congress and Church, for love and liberty. While Church and State are separable, there is always going to be a connection between religion and politics because of the intersection of values and voting. Religion is going to be part of the political conversation whether everyone likes it or not. (36)
Wright and Bird present a political theology that advocates for Christian use of political power to make the world more like God’s coming kingdom.
As the subtitle to their book suggests—Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies—the goal of this book is to help Christians think faithfully about the contemporary political situation. And it is in this arena that Wright and Bird make their most interesting contribution. Wright and Bird identify and reject three contemporary political structures that Christians need to resist: totalitarianism, Christian nationalism, and civic totalism. They defend an approach to the relation of church and state that is a combination of liberal democracy—a system that protects the rights and freedoms of all—and confident pluralism—an acknowledgement that people have a right to live and believe in different ways. They conclude that “liberal democracy and confident pluralism constitute a form of government and political philosophy that gives us the best opportunity to love God and to love our neighbour” (178).
These two books offer rich insights into the vexed relationship between Christians and power. Each book situates its discussion in historical theological context and in the contemporary political and theological context and responsibly addresses relevant biblical texts while presenting relevant examples regarding uses and misuses of power by and in the church.
They are helpful in our current situation because they raise important questions that help us to get out of the political tribes into which we find ourselves settling. Both are sharply critical, for instance, of movements p. 302 that are often present on the political right including Christian nationalism, the idea that Christians are given special protections and special privileges by the state and that the purpose of the government is to protect sound doctrine and to promote and enforce Christian morality. But they are also both sharply critical of what Fitch and Bird call “civic totalism,” an approach that often characterizes progressive politics. In civic totalism, the state uses its coercive power—usually so-called “soft power,” such as tax policy or education policy—to enforce the particular set of (frequently naturalistic) values preferred by the technocrats in charge. Both approaches fail because they treat others as a means to a political end rather than as persons made in the image of God.
Perhaps most interestingly, reading these books together requires us to think about the place of coercion in both our individual and our corporate lives. Fitch is clear that coercion has no place in church life; Wright and Bird seem to agree. Is this the case? Can the church function without some sort of coercion? Can Christian families function without some kind of power over? They agree that sometimes coercion is necessary for the state. But they disagree about Christian participation in the state’s use of coercion. Fitch holds that Christians can only participate in state use of coercion to preserve order, to avoid injustice, but that Christians cannot use coercion to try to accomplish God’s redemptive purposes of healing, reconciliation, and transformed lives. Wright and Bird argue that Christians must try to guide the state to make society more like what God’s kingdom will look like. So, we are confronted with the question of how we should use coercion.
Abuses of power are not always obvious. Power often remains subtle and invisible to those who have it. So, both books deserve attention from those in leadership in churches and other Christian institutions. Sustained reflection on how power is used will strengthen Christian discipleship, clarify how Christians can best be “salt and light” citizens of their nation, and perhaps help believers relate to each other in more healthy ways in their congregations.
