{"id":1716,"date":"2010-07-19T10:41:57","date_gmt":"2010-07-19T14:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ispeculate.wpmudev.host\/main\/?p=1716"},"modified":"2010-07-19T10:41:57","modified_gmt":"2010-07-19T14:41:57","slug":"power-is-not-a-bad-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/2010\/07\/19\/power-is-not-a-bad-word\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Power&#8221; is Not a Bad Word"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>Some people are put off by the blatant appeal to power, which is an integral part of congrega tion-centered organizing. We tend to think of power as manipulative, as domineering, as too political, as &#8220;power over&#8221; someone else, and we suspect such power is out of keeping with our Christian values. We recall Lord Acton&#8217;s famous dictum: &#8220;Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>More recently, however, we have come to recognize that power in and of itself is neither good nor bad. Power is nothing more than the ability to accomplish something.<\/p>\n<p>Whether the goal is to accomplish something helpful or harmful is another question, but power itself is a necessary ingredient for any action. Power is constitutive of life. (Mark I. Wegener)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>from \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.gamaliel.org\/Library\/congregationCenteredOrganizing.htm\">Congregation-Centered Organizing: A Strategy for Growing Stronger Communities<\/a> via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gamaliel.org\/\">The Gamaliel Foundation an organizing institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some people are put off by the blatant appeal to power, which is an integral part of congrega tion-centered organizing. We tend to think of power as manipulative, as domineering, as too political, as &#8220;power over&#8221; someone else, and we suspect such power is out of keeping with our Christian values. We recall Lord Acton&#8217;s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/2010\/07\/19\/power-is-not-a-bad-word\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;Power&#8221; is Not a Bad Word<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[33,37,45,68,89,90,97,118,126,146,158],"class_list":["post-1716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","tag-communication","tag-counseling","tag-deeds","tag-gathering","tag-injustice","tag-interfaith","tag-leadership","tag-politics","tag-relationship","tag-stewardship","tag-unity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ispeculate.net\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}