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The ideas of left-handed and right handed power come from Robert Capon's book.
Alright, so let's do a little experiment. Let's say your boy is 16 years old and he is standing at the edge of a cliff. You obviously don't want him there, because he could fall off. So there is two different ways to exert your hopeful result; the result being of course that he doesn't fall off the cliff. One way to stop him would be to sneak up from behind him and tackle him away from the cliff, this would be a very direct way of making sure you got your way. Or you could call to him from afar and try to convince him to come away from the cliff. One would be very-direct straight line power, and the other more left handed. Right hand power is that which comes out of our self-determination and self-direction, focused on getting the results that we want. It is governed by the logical, plausible-loving left hemisphere of the brain.
Now direct, straight-line, intervening power does have many uses, so I'm not telling you this to say it's wrong. You can do most chores this way. If you want to use the phone, you bring the phone to your head. If you want to drive across the street, you get in the car and drive it there. This type of power, the kind of power that uses the force that you need to get the result that you want is the reason that almost anything in this world exists. Anything you want done, you have to apply direct force and power to it.
So if you want your way...you apply direct force and get it. You use direct, right handed power.
Now let's keep this analogy going for a bit. Let's say that your 16 year old went back to the cliff, and you told him not too and then he went back again. Let's say he just keeps going back and back and back and never listens to you. At first you may drag him away from the cliff. Maybe next time to drag him away and yell at him to try to scare him a bit more. Let's say he keeps doing it, again and again and again? What do you do next if you only know straight line direct power? Well I suppose you could start beating him, and then just beat him harder and harder. Then you can chain him to a pole. In the end of this exchange of affairs you get your way. But there is something lost in this. If we as humans believe that one of our main objectives in life is to remain in loving relationships with other people, then this direct, straight-line power becomes completely useless. It doesn't work. The relationship will always be damaged.
This is where forcing direct straight line power gets you. It gets you your way, when you don't even want it anymore because your relationships have been completely destroyed. It eats itself. You will get your way most certainly, but the power you have exerted has caused damage elsewhere.
The other option in this situation is something Luther calls left-handed power. "Unlike the power of the right hand (which is governed by the logical, plausible-loving left hemisphere of the brain), left-handed power is guided by the more intuitive open, and imaginative right side of the brain." Left-handed power, is paradoxical power. It looks like weakness, intervention that seems indistinguishable from nonintervention. Examples of left-handed power would be what Gandhi organized in his non-violent resistance against the British. Any martyr is using this type of power also. This kind of power though, never ever guarantees that you will get your own way and it will never stop evil doers from doing evil things. The only thing that left-handed power does is guarantee you have not made the mistake of closing any relational doors from your side. There is a deep paradoxical understanding that is needed for this type of power to be understood, but it is the only way that conflicts between people can ever be truly solved and dealt with.
Q: What are some modern day and biblical examples of obvious right handed or left handed power?
We see this kind of struggle all through the scriptures. Man constantly trying to do things by simply getting them done and God always taking back roads and indirect ways of doing things. Prophets are a perfect example of left-handed power. Radical individuals who were set apart to call Israel back to God. They end up alone, wandering in desserts with very few people listening to them. You think that if God wanted to accomplish something he would make it obvious? Use some of the power that he obviously had. The examples are endless in how God acts within history and chooses a very left-handed solutions. A solution that usually doesn't even look like power at all, but rather weakness. Atheists argue from this point of view all the time. If God was real, if God was alive and wanted us to have a relationship with him then he would make it obvious. In other words, he would use a very direct and straight-line approach of getting our attention to let us know he is out there.
In our culture we have been made incapable of understanding anything but right handed, direct power. We go to war to get what we want. We spank to stop our kids from doing what we don't want them to do. We push hard and fight hard and manipulate to swing the favour of an argument into our direction. We always choose results over relationship. We have no understanding of choosing relationships over results. It barely makes sense to us. This isn't just happening in our culture or our time. It is has been happening ever since humans realized that they could get what they wanted if they just pushed and forced harder enough. Let's look at the Jewish nation, and the types of power they expected.
There were a few major sects of Jews that existed when Jesus was born, and I think if we understand them a bit, we can get a better understanding of the birth of Jesus and why it was so important.
The main group, that most of us are aware of are the Pharisees. The Pharisees had very specific ideas of what they were expecting in terms of a Messiah. They were studying the Torah in and out and they were convinced that someone was going to come who would finally purify Israel of all the sin and infringements on the Torah. They spent their lives staying pure and chastising others to be pure also. They had very strict rules following the Torah and they kept people in and out of their community based on whether or not the rules were followed. This is why most stories we read in the New Testament have the Pharisees gawking at Jesus hanging out with impure people and having problems with the sin that they thought he was committing. To them, a Messiah was coming to reward the pure, punish the impure. He was coming to a cleaned up people, ones that were already fixed. Because of this, the Pharisees found it necessary to use direct, straight-line power to try and make everyone pure so that their Messiah would come and not be disappointed. They stoned prostitutes. They instilled fear into tax collectors. They eventually crucified anything or anyone that got in their way of doing what they thought needed to be done, even if it meant destroying relationships.
Another group that existed in this time was the Sadducees. The Sadducees were much more involved in politics and they used that to sway the public. When they wanted to get something done, they simply used their social capital and made it happen. Everything they did was very straight-line and direct to get their own way using very powerful structures to get their own way.
Another group that existed were types of revolutionaries. There active slogan was "no King but God" and there was many violent attempts to remove power from the Romans. They did not believe in any sort of power in the king.
What they all had in common was that they were being persecuted and oppressed in the very land that God had promised them. They all had their own ways to use direct, straight-line, right handed power to try and make this happen. One used manipulation and fear, the other ones used politics and social capital and the others used violent means to get what they wanted or what they felt they deserved. All of them chose results over relationship. None of them would be in right relationship with the people they were trying to have power over.
So you have three strong people groups, all expecting some type of Messiah, some type of Saviour. One group is expecting rewards and punishments, another is expecting the Messiah to be a political hero and the other is expecting a war hero. This is the environment and the expectations that were everywhere when Jesus was born. Everyone is expecting a messiah who is going to right-handedly take down Rome and usher in a new kingdom.
Jesus was born in a stable. There is absolutely nothing royal, beautiful or exciting about it. This is one of the filthiest places around. This is where animals, the slaves of men, live. He was armed with nothing but his own innocence. The first things to experience the birth of the most important person to ever be born was a young virgin, her confused fiance and a bunch of farm animals. This is what Jesus was born into.
Jesus, the messiah, the one everyone was waiting for, arrived on the scene in the most anti-climatic way possible. Nobody knew it happened, besides a few animals. They couldn't even get into the inn. The only people that found out were some random shepherds...people who really have nothing to do with the entire story. At this point in the story, there is absolutely no reason for anyone to assume or expect that this kid is actually a king. All the signs point away from it. Out of wedlock, zero power, in a barnyard with smelly excrement lying around. This is better told as a story of a kid in a trailer park.
This is a risky move by God. God chooses to do the opposite of what the world expected and knew to start the beginning of the most important birth in the world. I want to show you this clip from a radio show called wiretap. Wiretap is a show on CBC of scripted conversations that a guy named Jonathan Goldstein writes and performs on the radio. This one is about a guy named Gregor pitching his idea for marketing the Messiah.
This is what people expected the first time the Messiah showed up. They expected the fireworks, the battle where he comes out on top and for the world to know when he entered the scene. Jesus though, was up to something else. He is sent to a no-name virgin, in a no-name town, with literally no one around besides some no-name shepherds. Either God needs to take some marketing lessons from Gregor or he had something else under his sleeve.
I would argue that what God was doing with the birth of Jesus was exercising left-handed power. This left-handed power at first glance looks weak, and barely deserves the name of power. But really, when you think about it, it is the only kind of power in the world that evil can't touch. This is the only way that he could have actually accomplished the redemption of all humankind. It had to come completely different than anything before. It couldn't come from just stronger force and louder voices. It had to end the cycle, not just add to it with a loud bang. This was the basis of Christ's life and ministry. He could have many times over and over again, destroyed Roman rule, take power in the dessert, pulled himself down off the cross. All these temptations were there, in fact they were named many times over and over again through the entire New Testament. No one really understood what was going on. He was mocked, Peter cut off an ear, they challenged Jesus to show them miracles. Slowly as his ministry grew, Jesus used less and less right handed straight line power and started to see everything in a different light. Eventually the only option is that instead of dishing out power and justifiable pain and punishment he was willing, quite foolishly, to take it on himself. He refused to use his power, which is the ultimate showing of left-handed power.
Just like in the story with the kid at the side of the cliff, if relationship is actually important then right handed power does not actually work. Instead of beating him into submission, you eventually take the beating on yourself, which we know that this is eventually what Jesus did. God in Christ died because he refused to use right handed straight line power to make his point and get the results that he wanted. In the end, he is on the cross, leaving the reality that there can be no more power that is exercised towards him, yet that leaves him with so much more he ever would have had if he ever forced his way.
Think about any situation where you are forced or coerced into doing something. While the person with the power may get his own way for a while, he will no longer have the relationships around him that he once had. What happens if the results he wanted was love and followers? How do you force that? You can't. The only option is to exercise left handed power, and take the brutality on yourself and allow it to happen. This truly is the only way.
It is this opposite left handed way of living that Jesus' birth brought into the world. He was an innocent baby, not a powerful ruler or king. Only through the innocence of his birth and being a child could this entire system of right handed living be reversed. If God would have sent another strong ruler, he would have only pushed a system that does not work, and would only make it worse and would still have no one following him after it was over. A left handed baby brings hope to the entire world, because he takes left handedness to the extreme and destroys any hope of right handed power actually winning. The only way to beat right handed power, is to take all the brutality of it on yourself and die. The birth of Jesus was the beginning of this.
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