In his article, “Ethics and Eschatology,” John Howard Yoder makes some helpful observations about the nature of power and weakness in theological perspective. In particular he seeks to break down the common opposition of “power” and “powerlessness.” He notes that “It is not false when people who call themselves ‘realists,’ from Machiavelli to Klausewitz to Reinhold Neibuhr, tell us that power comes from the barrel of a gun. That is one kind of power; but the alternative is not weakness but other kinds of power.”

He also notes that “Two semantic mistakes regularly cause confusion in this realm. One is to assume that ‘power’ is qualitatively univocal; the only differentiation being between more and less of it. The other is to claim that it is morally ‘neutral,’ with its moral value depending on what it is used for.”

Thus, Yoder argues that the question of “power” is not one of whether or not Christians are supposed to wield it; the question is what sort of powerfulness is appropriate to those who believe that the cross and resurrection reveal the truth of the cosmos. The mode of power appropriate to those who follow the Crucified Lord is one that sets the church in conflict with the mode of power as violation which places the church in a situation of apocalyptic conflict. Thus, as Yoder claims “to be disarmed after the mode of Christ is to be endowed with the power of truth-telling” and “community building, for which the metaphors of cosmic conflict are most apt because they break the frame of normalcy.”

Thus as Paul proclaimed, the situation is not that our weapons are not powerful but weak. Rather it is that “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.” (1 Cor 10:4)