Chapter 4: The Nature of Power (Part 1)
The End of Domination
Table of Contents – Chapter 4: Relational Power — The End of Domination
Part 2: Unilateral Power — Power Over (forthcoming)
Part 3: Relational Power — Power With (forthcoming)
Part 4: Authority — Power Made Legitimate (forthcoming)
Part 5: Jesus and the Web of Reciprocal Power (forthcoming)
Part 6: Leadership Without Domination (forthcoming)
Part 7: The Call to Reclaim Power Differently (forthcoming)
What if power didn’t have to mean domination? What if love itself were the most powerful force in the world — not because it controls, but because it transforms? In this chapter, we begin to rethink the very nature of power and the difference between control and connection.
Part 1: The Nature of Power
What is power?
It’s a word that evokes fear for many. We associate power with abuse, with domination, with someone imposing their will on others — whether through violence, law, wealth, or charisma. We see power as something some people have and others don’t. Something to get. Or to guard against.
But in its essence, power is simply the capacity to bring about change. To affect reality. To create, to shape, to influence. It’s the energy that makes anything happen — from a seed breaking soil to a voice breaking silence. There is no life without power.
The question, then, is not whether we use power, but how. And more importantly, what kind of power we participate in.
2. Unilateral Power
Anna Case-Winters describes this form of power as “power in the mode of domination and control.” And she warns of its deep consequences:
“Traditionally, the power implied here has been interpreted as power in the mode of domination and control. The ramifications of ascribing power to God and especially power in this mode are an admission that we prize power highly and that this is the kind of power we prize. Moreover, as this notion becomes divinized the exercise of this kind of power in the realm of human affairs is legitimated and promoted — with the obvious disastrous results in the form of oppression, exploitation, and violence.”
— Anna Case-Winters, God’s Power
This is the heart of the issue: if we imagine divine power as domination, then we justify domination among ourselves — in religion, in politics, in family life. But if we begin to imagine power differently — as reciprocal, relational, responsive — then our entire moral and social architecture begins to shift.
3. Relational Power
But not all power is unilateral. There is another kind — harder to see in a world obsessed with domination — but more fundamental to life. I call it relational power. And by that I don’t mean vague “togetherness.” I mean power that is reciprocal — a power that flows back and forth, between persons, between lovers, between neighbors, between Creator and creation.
Relational power arises when two or more centers of experience interact in ways that honor each other’s freedom and respond to each other’s presence. It is what happens when we co-create reality together — not by force, but by invitation, resonance, and response.
If unilateral power treats the other as an object, relational power sees the other as a subject — one with voice, agency, and dignity. Objects can be moved using unilateral (mechanistic) power, but subjects can be transformed by love.
Love is not passive. It is not weak. But neither is it controlling. Love transforms — not by overriding the other, but by calling forth what is deepest and truest within them. And in this sense, love is the ultimate power. It changes things. It creates bonds of relationships. It can create a new future, a “more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.” (Charles Eisensten)
This is why I believe we need to rethink not only how we use power — but also what power is. For if we want a world without domination, we must begin to imagine and practice a different kind of power altogether.